The Long Journey Home: the Complete First Season
by jetsly
Summary: For Shelly Godfrey, the long journey home began in front of an airlock. She made a choice, and in the end it would touch the lives of humans and Cylons everywhere.
1. Chapter 1: A Broken Machine

**DISCLAIMER:** _Battlestar Galactica_ is the creation of Glen A. Larson, and the reimagined universe of _Battlestar Galactica 2003_ is the intellectual property of Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. I do not own the rights to the Battlestar Galactica stories or characters. This is an AU work; no copyright infringement is intended, nor is any profit being made. This author does, however, reserve the rights to characters and plots of his own creation. The three lines of dialog following are from "The Plan," and are intended to frame the first chapter.

**NOTES:** The now complete first season of The Long Journey Home opens by branching off from a scene in the season one episode "Six Degrees of Separation," which was more elaborately treated in "The Plan." However, the story actually deviates from canon 35 years before the holocaust, and will remain largely non-canon until it reaches a distinctly different conclusion at the end of season four. Like the series itself, therefore, this story will unfold by seasons, and it will attempt to honor the series breaks as closely as possible. The 23 chapters that follow will accordingly conclude with an AU treatment of "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2," which ends series 1.

Reviews in general, and constructive criticism in particular, will always be welcome. I WELCOME REVIEWS IN PORTUGUESE, SPANISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN, LATIN, GERMAN, AND THAI AS WELL AS ENGLISH.

Readers should also be aware that season two is now completed. It was last posted on 14 October, 2011, and can be easily accessed via "All" for the rating, and "Number Six" and "Kara Thrace" for the characters.

**WARNING:** Some chapters do have adult content, including violence and sexual situations. Individual warnings will preface each such chapter whenever the content so warrants.

**THE LONG JOURNEY HOME**

**THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON**

_Oh look. An airlock. How handy._

_Wait. I could blend into life on another ship. With another disguise._

_Go. And don't forget to give them our coordinates. I want this finished._

CHAPTER 1

A BROKEN MACHINE

Shelly Godfrey heard the desperation in her voice, and hated herself for it. Her eyes pleaded with Cavil, willing him to understand that she needed more time. On the baseship, surrounded by her brothers and sisters, she had been just another Six, an anonymous part of the Cylon collective. She had never known a guarded thought, never been truly alone; in the stream, such things were not possible. Humanity's defining characteristic, in contrast, was its individuality. Humans could hold tight to their thoughts, and they were shaped by the infinitely complex tapestry of their emotions. No amount of programming, Shelly now realized, could ever have prepared her to pass convincingly for human. She could feel the wrongness, had been able to feel it ever since Adama had reacted so badly to her attempted seduction.

Cavil's words flitted across the surface of her mind, but Shelly Godfrey's attention was elsewhere. She wondered how so brief an existence could have occasioned such a wash of conflicting emotions. She regretted the loss of her earlier innocence, but at the same time she felt so badly cheated. Shelly understood that she had never known genuine emotion until the day she left to infiltrate the Colonies—and the sadness of that moment, when she had bid what she believed to be a temporary farewell to the gathered Sixes, barely hinted at the wealth of emotional experiences that lay in her future. Now the Six inside Shelly mourned for the sisters left behind. Whenever she thought of the baseship she envisioned a womb, and life belonged only to the few who had been expelled to play their part in humanity's destruction. To exist and to live, she mused, were two very different things. The difference could be measured in the intensity of feeling that she had encountered in the streets of Caprica City, and along the quays of Picon's harbors. Cylons might now walk the twelve worlds, but they would never bring them back to life.

Shelly Godfrey had been programmed for seduction and sabotage. Her body, she knew, was flawless, and in the Colonies she had quickly become aware that men found her beautiful. Indeed, they had competed to do her bidding. Awareness engendered doubt: why slaughter so pliable a species, and especially one that self-evidently had so much to contribute to the evolution of her kind? On the passenger liner, news of the attacks had caused confusion that bordered on panic, and for a brief moment Shelly could taste the heady sweetness of triumph. But the crew overcame their fear, and her fellow passengers had visibly struggled to remain calm. Most succeeded, which taught Shelly something about courage and determination. In the refugee fleet, she had daily taken the measure of human resilience, and a growing sense of admiration had slowly displaced the hatred instilled in her by others. It was, however, her part in the conspiracy to destroy Gaius Baltar that had turned out to be the final blow to her Cylon constructs. The sense of self-loathing that overwhelmed her had proven so powerful that she had actually sabotaged her own project. Finally, she could embrace the truth: Shelly Godfrey was a broken machine, and she would not have it otherwise.

Standing in front of the open airlock, staring at Cavil, a myriad of thoughts and feelings swirling through her consciousness, Shelly suddenly saw the Ones and their obsession with humankind in a new and very different light. _Isn't it ironic that I had to be consumed by guilt and shame of my own before I could appreciate the depth of their self-hatred! The Ones are at war with the universe! They are railing against the very fact of their existence, and they are directing the whole of their rage against our creators._ And with that thought, Shelly leapt into action.

Cavil, she quickly noted, was standing between her and the airlock. This gave her an enormous advantage; when a Six decided to push, the object of her wrath would either go through the wall or at the very least make a sizeable dent therein. The Sixes were warriors, and far the deadliest of the seven known Cylon models. Their unarmed combat skills were fully the equal of the most highly trained colonial marines, but inhuman strength and reflexes made Sixes the absolute mistresses of their tactical environment. A deadly predator lurked behind the slender bodies, the gentle eyes, and the soft voices. Cavil never had a chance.

Really, it was too easy. Without warning, Shelly reached out and planted both of her hands on One's chest. Then she pushed. Hard. Cavil landed on his back, and slid crashing into the opposite wall of the airlock. "What the frak?" That was as far as he got. When he looked up into Shelly's eyes, whatever Cavil had been about to say died on his lips. Her fierce gleam said it all: the predator had been unleashed.

"One, I am so very, very tired of your empty pieties," Shelly sighed as she began closing the door. "Be the best machines that the universe has ever seen? Well guess what, _brother_, the rest of us are never going to live up to your exalted standards, and I for one am sick of trying. Humans may have their flaws, but they also have redeeming qualities, and that is more than I can say for you and yours. You sneer at God, you mock our faith, and yet you are forever encouraging the Twos and Threes to believe that genocide is God's will. And that nonsense about parents—that they have to die before children can reach their potential? Really, One, we all know that the Fives are witless, but did you have to make it so painfully obvious?"

"Six, the humans are going to kill you," Cavil hissed in return. He made no attempt to get back onto his feet. "And when you download, I'll be waiting. Don't worry about being boxed. I am going to cause you more pain than you can possibly imagine, and there will be no end to it. The universe will die before you do!"

Shelly did not even bother to reply. She finished sealing the airlock, and then she cycled it. Her body, she suddenly realized, felt deliciously warm. _Is this,_ she asked herself_, what humans mean when they speak of pleasure?_

Shelly turned and walked quickly down the corridor. She had, she thought, fifteen minutes at the most.


	2. Chapter 2: A Journey Begins

CHAPTER 2

A JOURNEY BEGINS

Shelly could not run without drawing unwanted attention, and _Galactica _was a big ship. The corridors seemed to stretch forever, and the severe business suit that she favored hampered her stride. She was acutely aware of the passing seconds, knew even as she approached the entrance to the Combat Information Center that it had taken her seven long minutes to get there. Two armed marines stood guard; she could see them tense as she drew near. She stopped just out of arm's reach. _Calm down,_ Shelly told herself … _just stay calm._

"Private," she softly asked the dark-skinned soldier whom she had briefly encountered twice before, "is Commander Adama in the CIC?"

"Yes … yes, Ma'am," Private Ferris hesitantly replied.

"Then would you please inform the commander that Shelly Godfrey wishes to speak with him? It's urgent in the extreme."

Ferris glanced at his fellow marine, and saw his own sense of unease reflected in the other man's eyes. They both knew that two of their own were supposed to be all but glued to this woman. _How had she managed to elude them?_ "Uh, certainly Ma'am." Ferris radiated uncertainty. "If you'll wait here I'll, uh, see if the commander is free."

Private Ferris stepped into the CIC, shutting the hatch behind him. He approached the DRADIS console, where the commander, the XO and Dualla, the beautiful, young communications officer with those improbable blue eyes, were caught up in an obviously heated conversation. It was equally obvious that at the moment none of them were particularly happy. May Ares protect all soldiers, Ferris silently prayed, because he strongly suspected that the cause of their current unhappiness was the woman waiting outside the door. This was the kind of grade A mess that generally resulted in extra duty for all concerned, and if there was one thing that Private Nathaniel Ferris knew for certain, it was that their drunken XO would never pass on the chance to rub a marine's nose in it.

The commander, he saw, was fingering a pair of glasses, and glaring at Colonel Tigh. "She didn't just vanish."

The commander glanced in Ferris' direction. "What is it, Private?"

Ferris snapped to attention. "Sir, Miss Godfrey is waiting outside. She requests permission to speak with you, sir, and she says that it's urgent."

"What the hell?"

Ferris remained rigidly at attention, but he stole a glance at Tigh. The marine contingent loathed the colonel. He was absolutely frakking useless. The commander, he noticed, had said nothing, but he appeared ready to chew glass.

Adama looked slowly around the CIC, which had become uncommonly quiet, before allowing his gaze to travel back to the young marine. "Bring her in," he barked.

"Sir, yes, sir." Ferris pivoted smartly, and marched back to the entryway. Opening the hatch, he beckoned the young woman to enter. "Ma'am," he said, "the commander will see you."

. . .

"Mr. Gaeta," the commander called out, "does the civilian fleet have the updated emergency jump coordinates?"

"Sir, yes, sir," Gaeta crisply answered.

"Very good. Dee, signal the fleet to jump, and recall the CAP. Colonel Tigh, spin up our FTL. We're getting out of here as soon as the last Viper is aboard. Mr. Gaeta, you have exactly thirty minutes to plot our next jump." Adama turned back to his XO: "Saul," he quietly added, "I want to put as much distance between us and the Cylons as possible. We need time to figure out what just happened here."

Saul Tigh wholeheartedly agreed. He didn't quite know how to describe what had transpired during the last five minutes, but he was willing to bet his last bottle of ambrosia that someone was well and truly frakked. The question was: who?

. . .

**Six Minutes Earlier:**

Shelly paused as she entered the CIC, trying to gauge the mood of the crew at their various stations. What she saw unnerved her. The last time that she had been in this room, the sense of orderly calm had been punctuated by the buzz of background conversations. This time, there was only silence, and it seemed as if every eye was trained upon her. Shelly did not fear death; her memories offered no reference points. But the thought of what Cavil would do to her if she resurrected terrified her to the very core of her being. A part of her mind ordered her to remain calm, to make no sudden gesture that might be misinterpreted; inside her, however, a shrill voice was also screaming that she would be condemned without a hearing and suffer pain without end. She looked for Adama, saw him at the DRADIS console; she forced herself to take the few steps that would place her opposite him. It was the hardest thing that she had ever done in an admittedly brief life. _Make eye contact,_ she thought; _don't_ _let_ _him look away!_ _Make him believe you!_" Adama looked at her, silent but curious. Shelly thought that the barest trace of a smile etched his stern features.

Time was draining away, and still she did not know how to begin. Precious seconds passed. Then Shelly slowly stretched her arms out towards Adama, her wrists almost but not quite touching. "Commander, we have very little time. I want you to feel safe, so it would be best if your soldiers shackled me."

"Enlighten me, Miss Godfrey," Adama replied, that hint of bemusement still creasing his features, "why would I want to arrest you?"

Shelly was thunderstruck; this was not the reaction that she had been expecting. _He knows! But what does he know? Could it be the photograph? _The waters here were deep and dark, and Shelly was acutely aware of the fact that she did not know how to swim.

Knowing that she was not well versed in deceit, Shelly could only take refuge in the truth. "Because, Commander," she sighed, "I am a Cylon—one of the models that you have not encountered before—a Six." Behind her, Shelly sensed that the two marines had raised their weapons and removed the safeties. There was movement all around her, and she knew that her future was hanging by a thread. "Please, sir," she gently nodded towards her outstretched arms, "I have come here of my own volition, to warn you. I don't want to die; the thought of it terrifies me. Please."

"So, we're too far from the Cylon home world for you to download. I can see how that might frighten you. Real death is not for the faint of heart." The malice in Adama's voice was unmistakable.

"No, Commander," Shelly retorted, "quite the opposite. I do not want to die precisely because _there is a resurrection ship_ in range. I can't go back. A few minutes ago I tossed a One, the self-appointed leader of the Cylons embedded in the fleet, out one of your airlocks. If I resurrect, the Ones will publicly torture me to intimidate other Cylons with misgivings about the war, and they will do so for a very long time. If I download, death will offer no release. The best that I could hope for is a gradual descent into madness."

Bill Adama had as much imagination as the next man, and what he had just heard caused him involuntarily to wince. This show of sympathy encouraged Shelly to push ahead. "Sir, Cavil is downloading even as we speak. That's the first thing I have to warn you about. You must jump the fleet. Cavil knows your coordinates; as soon as he gets to a control room, you'll have baseships crawling all over you. We have five minutes at the most, perhaps a good deal less."

"Cavil?" Adama was genuinely startled. "Do you mean the priest?"

"Yes, sir."

Adama looked at his XO; the two men were equally horrified. "Gods," Saul said, "that frakker has had access to every ship in the fleet!"

Adama looked hard at the Cylon in front of him. Whether or not he believed her was immaterial. He just couldn't take the chance. "Mr. Gaeta?"

"On it, sir." Like everyone else in the CIC, Felix Gaeta had been observing the drama playing out in front of him with a kind of dread fascination, but he turned back to his console with a will.

Adama caught the eye of one his marines, and nodded at the Cylon's outstretched arms. "Oblige her," he ordered. Since Shelly offered no resistance, in a matter of seconds her hands were cuffed behind her back. Adama had indeed felt a brief moment of sympathy for the machine, but the moment had already passed. Bill was furious, so furious that now his impulse was to kill her. He simply hated manipulation, and all the more so when he was the one being manipulated. The thought of apologizing to that worm Baltar made his skin crawl. Shelly had guessed correctly; Gaeta had already shown him the evidence of photo manipulation. The commander longed to put his hands around Shelly Godfrey's throat and strangle the life out of her, but that was a luxury he could not afford. Adama shook his head in frustration; he wondered how many more surprises this thing would volunteer. There was only one way to find out.

Adama walked around the DRADIS console, and he didn't stop until he stood mere inches from the machine. He could smell its hair. _Roses_, he said to himself, and for some reason that made him even angrier. Shelly hardly dared to breathe; _if looks could kill,_ she thought, _I would already be dead._

"Now let's have the rest of it."

Shelly had to fight hard to maintain even a semblance of self-control, but at the same time she felt that she was safe, if only for the moment. Adama was now standing so close that she could smell his aftershave; surely, the soldiers would not fire with their commander so near. "Sir," Shelly responded as calmly as she could manage, "there's another Six loose on _Galactica_, and unlike me, she's still in the fight. She knows your weak points—every Cylon knows about the Secondary Damage Control and Auxiliary Fire Control stations. If you do not have fire teams already posted, you should secure both locations as quickly as possible. This Six was Cavil's pet, so I would also check the chapel and anyplace else he frequented. And warn your marines, Commander, that my sister is very, very dangerous. When they corner her, they should exercise extreme caution. If she refuses to surrender, instruct your squads to aim for her knees. Our joints are as vulnerable as yours."

"How closely does she resemble you? Will our marines know her on sight?"

"I'm not sure. Obviously, we share the same facial features, and there's little that she can do to conceal her height. But we're adept at altering our appearance. She's a brunette—medium length hair, with blonde highlights. I hide behind glasses, she chews gum. More importantly"—and here Shelly visibly blushed—"she tends to dress like a Picon hooker."

Behind her, one of the marines audibly gasped, and Adama didn't miss it. "Talk to me," he snapped, looking over Shelly's right shoulder. "Do you know this woman?"

Nathaniel Ferris glanced at his friend and fellow soldier, and decided instantly that another prayer to Ares was very much in order. He caught a glimpse of their immediate future, and it was filled with buckets of soapy water, long decks, and old toothbrushes. He offered a few silent but well-chosen words to Poseidon and Apollo as well.

"Yes, sir, I've … uh … seen her around."

"Seen her around," Adama spat. It was a statement, not a question. "Just how much of her _have you seen, Private, and just where is 'around'?_" Ferris looked at the Old Man; Adama was almost apoplectic.

"Um, all of her, sir. There's a … an alcove … inside the chapel."

"What do you think, Private? Are other members of your unit likely to be _acquainted_ with this machine's _equipment_?"

"Um … well … ah, probably most of us, sir."

_Gods spare me,_ Adama thought; _we have a Cylon wandering the decks, servicing the marines. Can this_ _day get any worse?_ Bill looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, counted slowly to three. He had forgotten all about Shelly Godfrey. For her part the Cylon was still standing right in front of him, but a grin was now helplessly spreading across her face. There was also a very odd sensation welling up inside of her. She had never laughed before, and she had absolutely no idea why her eyes were tearing up.

Bill Adama finally opened his own eyes, stepped back, and once again gazed around the CIC. "Anyone else?" Three of the enlisted personnel sheepishly raised a hand. Bill fought a sudden urge to go brush his teeth, maybe have a quick shave. He sighed deeply. "Dee, get Mathias on the line. . . ."

"Sergeant, we have a Cylon intruder- a young woman, with whom many of your men appear to be intimately acquainted." Bill gave her the particulars. "I want her in the brig, but be advised that this machine is dangerous, so approach with caution. And send two teams to secure Secondary Damage Control and Auxiliary Fire Control."

The commander did not ask, and Sergeant Mathias did not volunteer, that she also knew the young woman in question rather well.

Bill turned back to Shelly Godfrey, and was shocked to see her looking at him with what appeared to be genuine compassion. _And I wondered if this day could get any worse. Now I have a machine feeling sorry for me. _The commander slowly shook his head. "Mr. Ferris, escort this thing to my quarters, and keep her there until further notice. You," Bill pointed to the other marine, whose name he couldn't remember and didn't really want to know, "back to your post. Dee, ship wide hail for Major Bierns. I want our resident spook in the CIC ASAP."

"Mr. Gaeta," the commander called out, "does the civilian fleet have the updated emergency jump coordinates?"


	3. Chapter 3: Our Resident Spook

CHAPTER 3

OUR RESIDENT SPOOK

Lieutenant Gaeta was more than half way through the next set of jump calculations when Major John Bierns strolled into the CIC. Bierns and Tigh exchanged curt nods, and then the major turned to face Commander Adama.

"Nice of you to join us, Major." There was considerable sarcasm in Adama's voice.

"I apologize, sir," Bierns said. The major was dressed in civilian clothes, and he did not salute. "I was working in my Raptor, and missed the hail. I'm only here now because Chief Tyrol brought it to my attention." The Colonial Secret Service officer had a Raptor of his very own, parked in a remote corner of the hangar bay. "What's up, sir?"

Adama stared at the CSS officer for a long moment before replying. "A situation has come up, Major, and it has your name written all over it. An hour ago, we apparently had three Cylon infiltrators aboard _Galactica_, two females and a priest named Cavil. We only know this because one of the females has come forward and openly confessed; she calls herself a number six. She claims that Cavil was their ringleader. I say 'was' because she also says that she tossed the priest out an airlock. We can't locate him, so there's absolutely no evidence to prove or disprove that part of her story, which is altogether too convenient for my liking. She also helped us to capture her 'twin sister', if that's the right term for it, in the chapel a few minutes ago. She didn't even put up a fight, and that really makes me wonder what's going on here."

Bill suspected that, no matter how long he lived, he would never forget the surreal conversation that he had just concluded with Corporal Venner.

. . .

"CIC, Gaeta." A brief exchange ensued, and then the lieutenant turned towards Adama.

"Excuse me, Commander; it's Corporal Venner."

"Put him on speaker, Mr. Gaeta."

"On speaker, sir?"

"Yes, Mr. Gaeta, on speaker." Adama was addressing the young lieutenant, but his eyes roamed the CIC.

"Go ahead, Corporal."

"Sir," Corporal Venner reported, "we have captured the Cylon. My squad found her in the chapel, sir … um, with her pants down, so to speak, sir."

"Did she offer any resistance?"

"Ah, no sir. However, she did ask if we were looking for a group rate, sir."

"_A group rate?"_ Adama's voice was strangled. _Zeus Almighty, have the machines developed a sense of humor? _"Oh, let me guess," the commander drily responded, "an off-duty marine had her _pinned down_?"

"Well … um … yes, sir," the corporal replied. "On the altar."

"_On the altar?_" _Gods,_ Bill thought_, if the Gemenese hear about this, they'll want my head on a spit. And that damned schoolteacher would be only too happy to give it to them._

"Corporal," Bill instructed, "I want that thing in the brig, and _no one, and I do mean no one_, gets in to see her without my permission." Bill frowned for a moment. "One more thing, Corporal. Tell Mathias that when she writes up her log entry, she should be _very_ judicious in her choice of words. _Very judicious._ That is all, Corporal."

. . .

"Since you're the expert, Major," Adama concluded, "I believe that you should interrogate our prisoners. Maybe we have a defector on our hands, or maybe the Cylons are just up to their usual tricks. See what you can find out."

"Would the young lady in question be Shelly Godfrey, sir?"

Adama blinked, and then blinked again. _How does he know these things_, Bill asked himself. He wasn't aware that the spook had already had a quiet word with Gaeta, impressed upon him that a man's life hung in the balance, and urged him to check the photograph with every diagnostic tool at his disposal. Bierns knew how much Gaeta admired the oily doctor, and he was confident that the lieutenant would discover the truth. Gaeta had never had the opportunity to get back to him, but Baltar's recent release spoke volumes in and of itself.

"Yes. I had her removed to my quarters. I'll introduce you. Colonel Tigh, you have the com."

Major Bierns trailed the commander out of the CIC. An uncomfortable silence enveloped the two men as they walked the ship's corridors. Bierns respected Adama's gruff professionalism, but Adama did not know enough about his counterpart to reciprocate. In fact, Bill was acutely and painfully aware of how little he did know about the man.

Adama guessed that the major was in his mid-thirties, but he had never seen his jacket, so he couldn't be sure. He also could not tell what planet Bierns called home. It wasn't that Bierns lacked an accent; the problem was that he had so damned many of them. He could flawlessly mimic a Caprican bureaucrat one moment, and an Aerilon farmer the next. If someone had told Bill that the spook could speak every language and dialect in the Colonies, it would not have surprised him in the least.

Adama and the CSS officer had crossed paths on two previous occasions. Eleven years earlier, when Bill had been the_ Columbia's_ executive officer, then Captain Bierns had come aboard. Everyone knew that military rank in the highly secretive CSS was purely honorific, but it was still something of a shock to see someone so young in so senior a position. The tight-lipped young officer had remained on board for four days, and had done nothing except examine personnel files. When he left, the only thing that he took with him was a stack of paper—a copy of the first page of each file, which contained nothing more than the usual background information, photograph included.

Their second meeting had been far more recent and, for Adama, it had marked the effective end of his career. Bill now had a battlestar of his own, and two of the fleet's most senior intelligence officers had persuaded him to take his ship, the _Valkyrie,_ out for an off-the-books mission along the Armistice Line. The objective was to provoke a Cylon response, and to that end Adama had sent Bulldog, one of his most reliable Viper pilots, _across_ the line. It was a rogue operation, and Bill knew it, but he fully supported the op; no one had seen or heard from the Cylons in almost thirty-five years, and like many of the fleet's commanders, Adama was desperate for hard intelligence. Unfortunately, the mission had gone to hell, the politicians had got wind of it, and the inevitable tribunal had been convened to leave the necessary scapegoats twisting in the wind. The admirals involved had been forced into early retirement, but Commander William Adama had been offered what was technically a lateral transfer. Someone, Adama fervently believed, had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to humiliate him. He had been given precisely two options: retire, or take command of _Galactica_, an antiquated relic from the Cylon War that was scheduled to be decommissioned and handed over to the Department of Education as a museum exhibit. Bill had seriously considered retirement. Indeed, he had arranged a few interviews with executives in the private sector, but Bill had long ago served on the aging battlestar, and he had a soft spot for the old girl in his heart. In the end, he had taken his medicine and accepted the transfer.

Bill vividly remembered the day that he had testified before the tribunal. Now Major Bierns had been present throughout. True, he did not have a seat on the dais, and he had never uttered a word, but Bill Adama knew that it was the career bureaucrats sitting silently behind their masters that posed the real threat in these hearings. He had often wondered whether the enigmatic officer now walking beside him had had a hand in his punishment.

Adama knew that Major John Bierns had long been a hot topic in the upper echelons of the fleet's rumor mill. You couldn't be such a high flier and not make it onto a host of DRADIS screens. People well positioned to know such things claimed that, early in his career, Bierns had visited every ship in the fleet as well as every military installation, including the ultra secret research facilities in the asteroid belt. What he actually did during these far-flung travels was, however, strictly a matter of conjecture. During the Tournay administration, Bierns was allegedly the junior partner in the service's ruling triumvirate. The mill had Colonel Marcus Greene managing the shop's day-to-day affairs, while the commanding officer, General Harlan Berriman, supposedly sat around and conjured up the complicated and sometimes downright nasty schemes that were a CSS trademark. Somewhere along the way, Major John Bierns had been dubbed the Lord High Executioner. It was understood that the major was Berriman's point man, but whether something a good deal more sinister was lurking behind that unlikely nickname was a question no one wanted to explore.

Bill had reason to believe that Bierns' influence and reach had swollen enormously when Richard Adar assumed the presidency. The mill said that, during Adar's second term, the major got more face time with the president than the whole of the cabinet combined. When Bierns resurfaced after the attacks, in circumstances that were passing strange even by CSS standards, the commander had asked Laura Roslin what she knew about him. The president had confirmed that, on at least two occasions, she had exchanged a few pleasantries with the major in Adar's office. She had come to the conclusion that the two men were in fact thicker than thieves. However, she had told Bill that what really puzzled her was the major's inexplicable social prominence. The spooks were notorious for staying in the background, and throughout most of his career, the major had been as invisible as the rest of them. But in the last twelve to sixteen months before the attacks, Laura had explained, while Berriman and Greene had continued to fly under the DRADIS screen, Bierns had begun consistently to put in an appearance at official albeit social gatherings that his type normally shunned. Political dinners, fleet banquets, parties hosted by defense contractors looking to get a leg up on the competition for next year's bids—wherever the high and mighty gathered, he was suddenly in attendance. He stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, and that had really got the rumor mill off and running. Even Bill had heard the wildest, weirdest rumor of them all—that the Cylons had somehow penetrated the CSS. He had dismissed that one without a second thought: toasters running around the CSS? How did such nonsense ever get started?

After he had hit upon the truth at Ragnar Station, of course, Bill had returned to those old rumors, and given them a second look. He found it almost impossible to believe that the skin jobs could have penetrated so small and paranoid an outfit as the CSS, but the Cylons must have found a back door somewhere. The Mark VII's that he had lost that first day proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Bill had been prepared to accept that Gaius Baltar was the traitor in question, but now that Shelly Godfrey had been exposed, he was back to square one—and sitting in the center of that square was the CSS. Bill and the major both had four executive orders sitting in their electronic files, pure political tylium, and what they told Bill was that all bets were off. Every commander in the fleet had received a copy of Tournay 116-117. They were couched in the usual bureaucratic jargon, but no one could mistake their meaning. Order 116 had given the CSS broad, discretionary authority to draft colonial fleet personnel and draw upon fleet supplies for its own purposes, and it had specifically excused CSS officers from any obligation to explain the whys and wherefores of their operations to the fleet's commanders and admirals. Buried deep inside 116, Bill vividly recalled, was some very odd language. The authority to invoke the order was specifically restricted to CSS officers of the rank of major or above. There were only three such officers, and John Bierns, the Lord High Executioner, was one of them. At bottom, Order 117 then transformed the CSS into a direct extension of the president's office. Put simply, the order stipulated that CSS personnel would report to their own superiors, to the president upon request- and to no one else. In essence, the CSS could go anywhere and do anything, and that was _why all bets were off_.

Whatever was going on, Richard Adar had been so impressed that, on his first day in office, he had taken the almost unprecedented step of renewing his predecessor's twin orders. They had come down to the fleet again, this time as Adar 2-3. If Bierns had subsequently become a fixture in Adar's office, Bill reasoned, the explanation was not far to seek.

All of this would have been academic if Bierns had not reappeared in a manner that, quite simply, defied belief. _Galactica_ had completed her two hundred and sixty-third jump, and Bill had dispatched Raptors to a pair of nearby systems; the search for resources that would pull the fleet back from the razor's edge had become mission routine. The fleet was so far out in the depths of uncharted space that Bill didn't think they could find their way back to the Colonies even if the occasion arose. The Raptors had come up empty, or almost so. Boomer and Crashdown were stunned to find one of their own adrift in the system to which they had been dispatched. Their first thought was that the Raptor had been abandoned, but then the ship powered up and her pilot began to send colonial recognition codes. Boomer had never heard of John Bierns, but a major in the CSS? This one was way above her pay grade, and definitely something for the commander to sort out. The two birds returned to the nest, and Commander William Adama was waiting impatiently on the deck when Major John Bierns casually walked out of his ship and just as breezily requested permission to come aboard. "Permission granted," Bill had automatically replied; "now tell me what the frak you're doing out here!" But Bierns had volunteered little, and communicated less. He had, he admitted, been en route from the _Atlantia_ to Tauron when the Cylons hit. Once he had ascertained that both CSS and Picon fleet headquarters had been taken out in the first wave, he had maneuvered his Raptor into the debris field of what an hour earlier had been the battlestar _Triton_. His Raptor possessed state-of-the-art shielded electronics, and he had deployed the entire package to pull in whatever intel he could gather from both civilian and military traffic. When the magnitude of the colonial defeat became clear, he had obeyed standing orders, and fled the Colonies along a prearranged route to a designated rendezvous point. Initially, he said, he had mistaken Boomer's Raptor for another CSS vessel, and he claimed to be as surprised to see Adama as Adama was to see him.

Bill knew CSS doublespeak when he heard it, but he had been prepared to let the matter drop. After all, one couldn't really expect something as trivial as a holocaust to force one of the spooks to come clean. Then Chief Tyrol had filed a report on the Raptor's fuel load. The damned bird was almost full. That had led to a second, very ugly confrontation in the commander's quarters. Adama had pressed hard, _very hard_, but Bierns had given him nothing. At that point, Adama had seriously considered throwing the major in the brig. Bill was always inclined, as he put it, to go with what you know, and he was pretty damned sure that the only way a Raptor could get this far out with a near full fuel load was by hitching a ride on a cylon baseship. In the end, Bill had had to weigh his own suspicions, which he forthrightly conceded to be heavily influenced by the bizarre rumors surrounding the CSS, against four very concrete executive orders. Legally, Bierns could strip him of his command, and they both knew it. Sure, Bill was confident that in a showdown the marines would back him against an outsider and the law be damned. But that was precisely the point—the law would have to be damned.

The two men had finally settled on an uneasy compromise. They would each do their respective jobs, and they would try and avoid a turf war. Adama tasked Bierns to keep a distant eye on Gaius Baltar, whom they both agreed was one strange little man. They also agreed that the president, who clearly had not accessed the relevant executive orders, should continue to be kept in the dark. Roslin scared them both. She was impulsive, and therefore dangerous. The idealistic schoolteacher turned political hack had obtained just enough power to discover that she liked the taste, and neither man wanted her to take a bigger bite from this particular apple. Bierns actually wasn't in the habit of reporting to anybody, and Adama assuredly didn't want to hand Roslin an open-ended invitation to interfere in _Galactica's_ affairs. One sentence in Adar's third executive order made him especially uneasy:

COLONIAL SECRET SERVICE OFFICERS AUTHORIZED TO CARRY OUT EXECUTIVE ORDER THE SECOND SHALL, UPON THE DIRECT WRITTEN OR VERBAL REQUEST OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE TWELVE COLONIES OF KOBOL, COMMUNICATE TO SAID PRESIDENT, WITH NO OTHER BEING PRESENT AND NO MINUTES BEING TAKEN, THE ONGOING STATE OF SUCH OPERATIONS AS THE PRESIDENT OR HIS PREDECESSORS, OR THE COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE COLONIAL SECRET SERVICE, HAVE AUTHORIZED.

If Roslin was clever enough—and bold enough, Bill acknowledged—all she really had to do was claim that the whole damned war was an ongoing CSS operation, and she would sweep the board. The civvies _loved_ conspiracy theories, and the wackiest theories seemed to be the ones with the greatest appeal.

As they approached the hatch to his quarters and their confrontation with Shelly Godfrey, Commander William Adama and Major John Bierns both had a great deal to worry about.


	4. Chapter 4: Shelly, Meet John

CHAPTER 4

SHELLY, MEET JOHN

Someone had finally had the presence of mind to summon more marines, so when Shelly Godfrey left the Combat Information Center she did not lack for company. Still, she was all but oblivious to the cordon of soldiers that ushered her through the hallways. _I'm alive … alive … I'm alive._ That single thought was cascading through the corridors of her mind. She was in a state of near disbelief. She inhaled and she exhaled, over and over again, the simple, repetitious act of breathing—it brought her a sense of joy that, even an hour earlier, she could not possibly have imagined.

She appreciated now how truly terrifying those few minutes in the CIC had been. Each second had seemed like an eternity, waiting for the bullet that would send her on her way to Cavil and the everlasting torment that he had promised her. The worst had come near the end, when that sudden rush of sympathy for Adama had caught her so completely off guard. Something dark and terrible had been bubbling inside of her, beneath the grin that she had not summoned and could not control. Shelly knew all about hysteria, and hysterical laughter. On the day of the attacks, two of the passengers on her ship had been similarly overcome. A doctor had sedated them, but there was no doctor waiting for her in the CIC. A hysterical Cylon at _Galactica's_ very heart? Someone would have shot her, just on general principles.

When they reached Adama's quarters, two marines peeled off and took up position on either side of the hatchway. Private Ferris opened the hatch, stepped through, then turned and leveled his rifle at her chest. Behind her, another marine jammed his weapon into her spine, and pushed her into the room. Ferris backed away, his rifle ready, his eyes never leaving her. He located a chair, and slid it in front of the commander's desk. He angled it, so that they would be able to observe her arms and legs. If the machine was going to make a move, he wanted to see it coming. His weapon still at the ready, he ordered her to move slowly forward, to sit. The Cylon did as she was told. Ferris cautiously retreated to the hatchway; at last, the two soldiers could lower their weapons, but they remained alert. Their eyes never wavered.

Shelly Godfrey tried to think. She was in the commander's quarters, not the brig, and she clung to that fact as if to a lifeline. Adama would come to her with questions, and she was eager to pepper him with answers. She resolved not to lie to him; she was too clumsy, too transparent. Once before, in this very room, she had reached out to him with soft words, beguiling words, everything manufactured, and he had seen the lie for what it was, recoiled from her. No more. She had delivered her fate squarely into his hands, and he would not suffer her lies. _Surely_, she thought, _he will not expect me to have the answer to every question. Surely he will concede that there must be limits to my knowledge._ Deep inside her mind, however, that tiny but shrill voice had returned. "Even so, Six, even so," it was taunting, "when the last question is asked and the last answer given, what oh what will become of you then?" Shelly wanted to fight back against that insidious voice but it was becoming hard to think; her shoulders had begun to ache. The minutes passed.

Shelly could not remember ever clasping her hands behind her back, never mind doing so for any measurable length of time. She was becoming more and more uncomfortable, and now it was having its effect on her concentration. If only she could turn off the pain. She tried arching her back, then leaning forward; the relief was only momentary. The two marines watched her squirm; their weapons rose in autonomic response. Shelly sensed the tension in the room, knew that she needed to defuse it. She bowed her head, a gesture of surrender. "Excuse me." Her voice was a soft whisper, the tone one of meekness and compliance. "Could one of you possibly help me? Sitting like this is … it's very painful. Would it be all right for me to kneel on the floor?" She tried to make it a suggestion rather than a request.

Nathaniel Ferris thought that that was one of the best ideas he had heard all day. A Cylon on the floor was way better than a Cylon in a chair, and infinitely better than a Cylon standing on its feet. Why hadn't he thought of this before? "Go ahead," he said; once again, the two marines trained their weapons upon her.

Shelly rose easily to her feet but she reckoned that, unaided, that was as far as she was going to get: her skirt was just too constricting. She looked back at the soldiers, trying to convey her sense of helplessness. "I can't," she said, looking down. "My skirt…" She let the words trail off, hoping that they would understand.

Ferris didn't need to be drawn a map; the bars around Picon's fleet transport center drew tall women in tight dresses like moths to a flame. He opened the hatch, and beckoned the second pair of guards to enter. He explained what needed to be done. In seconds, Shelly was on the floor, and the marines returned to their various posts. Shelly arched her spine again, and without the chair back to confine her, this time she could really stretch. She worked her muscles as best she could. Once again she turned her head to the two colonial soldiers. "Thank you," she offered, with a weak and tentative smile that nonetheless reached her eyes. Two simple words, but they were heartfelt because in truth the smallest acts of kindness now held great meaning for her. Shelly was a very young machine, and she had almost no experience of nonverbal communication. Oh yes, she had mastered what humans called a 'come hither' look, but that was pretty much the limit of her repertoire. The humans around her seemed to say so much without ever having to say anything at all. She valued the skill, wanted to learn it; she thought that she might need it to survive.

And now that she could concentrate again, survival wasn't merely uppermost in her mind—it was the _only_ thing on her mind. Shelly Godfrey knelt on the floor and reviewed her situation; in her head she replayed that disastrous meeting with Adama, the two of them sitting side by side on his couch. Then she went further back and replayed the instructions that Cavil had given her, readying her for seduction. She remembered the contempt in his eyes. Cavil seemed to know everything about Adama—his broken marriage, the death of his son, his failures as a father. He's lonely, One had said, so attack him there, turn his guilt, his shame and his need against him. Shelly had objected: the commander is never alone; how can he be lonely? Cavil had walked her through it, explained the difference, the concept of loneliness at the top, and she had nodded in feigned understanding. But she had no memories, no context: her incomprehension was complete. In the end, not knowing what else to do, she had repeated Cavil's lines almost word for word. "Push his buttons," One had said, "and watch his response. Find his weakness, and exploit it." At first, everything went as planned—and then it had all gone so terribly wrong. In her mind she went back to the couch, William Adama sitting just to her left, their bodies almost touching.

. . .

"_There are times when I just feel so alone now."_

She had kept her voice low, attempting to reel him in, but the commander had simply stared at the floor.

"_Times when I just want so much to be held again."_

Adama would still not look up, so she had leaned toward him, forcing the situation.

"_You understand that, don't you?"_

Her question had earned a response. The commander had looked up, but not at her. His gaze had been unfocused; he seemed to see something far, far beyond the chamber's wall.

"_Of course_," Adama had finally replied. He had nodded, turned ever so slightly towards her, but he still refused to make eye contact.

"_There must be times when…when you feel alone"._

Shelly was so close to him, so close, and did not understand why he would not meet her gaze.

"_And the thought of another body next to yours…seems like something out of a dream."_

The commander continued to sit next to her, but she knew that he wasn't really there. His mind had left the room, taken flight to some distant memory. Then, without warning, he had turned his head; was he even aware that he had done so?

Shelly had gone for the kill. She had closed what little distance remained between them, offered him the gentlest of kisses, the barest caress of her lips. Adama had leaned into it, wanting it, wanting her. Cavil had been right! The commander's need was so tangible! She had sensed his barriers disintegrate, knew to the microsecond when he had surrendered himself to her.

And two seconds later, the world had collapsed around her.

. . .

Shelly's eyes went wide as she returned to the present. _Machine_! This was no tiny voice mocking her from some obscure corner of her brain; Shelly Godfrey was front and center. _You stupid, frakked up, pathetic machine_! Now she saw the whole of it, the moment beyond the kiss. She saw herself pulling away, leaning back, eyes wide in appraisal. Adama had caught that look, knew instantly that he had been played. His eyes had filled with anger, but he had contained it, politely but firmly ushered her out of his quarters. And colonial marines had become her constant companions.

The enormity of her mistake appalled her. How could she even think that she might regain his trust? He would use her, drain her dry, and then discard her—hurl her right into whatever hell Cavil was busily devising.

Shelly had slumped forward, dejected, her head deeply bowed. Then she remembered that she was not alone. She jerked her head up. _The marines! Dear God did I say any of this out loud? _She turned her head swiftly towards them, and registered the looks of puzzlement on their young faces even as she reproached herself for taking His name in vain. The human talent for understanding the unspoken thought came to her yet again; somehow, she knew, the two soldiers had sensed that, mentally, she was kicking herself all around the room.

Shelly's agitation had been far more apparent than she realized. She had been repeatedly shaking her head, and at one point a low moan, or perhaps it was a groan, had escaped her lips. Private Alexander Ascalon didn't know which, but he had begun seriously to wonder whether the Cylon was short-circuiting. Yeah, OK, her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was probably feeling the strain, but what had it been, a lousy twenty minutes? No frakkin' way! Private Nathaniel Ferris, on the other hand, had quite a different take on what was unfolding before him. He had been down this particular road once or twice himself, and he had nothing but sympathy for any creature stranded in the wasteland. He had got there courtesy of the bottle; he didn't think that Miss Shelly Godfrey's problems had anything to do with alcohol.

Shelly Godfrey saw the sympathy and concern in Ferris' eyes, felt the unspoken connection between them, and just like that it hit her. There were three of them in the room, and yet she had been so completely alone. Now a bond had somehow formed between her and the dark-skinned private, a bond which excluded his companion. _It's not a question of numbers,_ Shelly thought. The realization stunned her. _It's a state of mind…IT'S A STATE OF MIND!_ She replayed her conversation with Adama again, and it abruptly twisted into a new and entirely different configuration. The loneliness at the top. The commander had to keep his emotional distance, or the sacrifices that he demanded of others would eat him alive. And she had charged his barriers, overwhelmed them; she had tried to destroy the one thing that kept him whole. Had this been Cavil's real objective? Was the plot against Gaius Baltar nothing more than a feint that would allow her to get close? She felt sick; she felt…_used, but more than anything else she felt shame_. The thought whirled around and around: _is this what it means to be cylon?_

Somewhere inside Shelly a dam had broken, and insight followed upon insight. She looked down at the floor, then up again at the soldiers towering over her. She smiled at Private Ferris, a small apologetic smile that tried to thank him for his show of concern. _The cylon side of my nature frightens him,_ Shelly surmised, _and every time he sees it he raises his weapon. But suffering, weakness, vulnerability…he doesn't associate these things with machines. They're human qualities, so when he sees this side of my nature, which is no less real, he responds to it. He cares._ She thought about Adama, that one moment in the CIC, the expression on his face when she had given him a preview of what Cavil had in store for her. _My weakness is my strength,_ she gasped. _It can save me; it may well be the only thing that can._

Logic and intuition had come together inside Shelly Godfrey's mind in a way that no Cylon had ever experienced. Never again, she resolved, would she attack the walls behind which William Adama of necessity had to hide. Instead, she would tear down her own barriers because ultimately they served no useful purpose. She would compel him to look beyond _what_ she was to _who_ she was by the simple expedient of stripping herself bare. No more manipulation, no more artifice. She would parade her vulnerability before him, her weakness and her need. Shelly Godfrey was a machine but she was also female, and she now knew that, more than anything else, _she wanted to be a woman_. She could not get there on her own, but William Adama could carry her across the threshold. She vowed, right then and there, that William Adama would save her.

Shelly Godfrey was a young but also a very stubborn machine. She had made a vow, and she was absolutely determined that William Adama would keep it.

Shortly thereafter, the hatch opened and two men entered the room. Commander William Adama nodded to the two marines, indicating that they should wait outside. Then he looked down at the Cylon, a bit discomfited that she was kneeling on the floor, chained at his feet. He paused for a long moment, and then he spoke. "Miss Shelly Godfrey, meet Major John Bierns."


	5. Chapter 5: Vortex

CHAPTER 5

VORTEX

Shelly Godfrey was kneeling on the floor, but she was becoming impatient … increasingly impatient. She did not dread Adama's arrival; now that she had mentally cast the die, she found that she actually longed for it. The pieces had clicked together so neatly in her mind. She would offer the commander a bargain, a bargain so ridiculously one-sided that she was confident he would swallow it whole. She would give him unvarnished truth. She would answer every question, and she would answer fully and honestly. If she did not have the answer, she would tell him so. More than that, if he failed to ask the right questions then she would ask them in his stead. She would press him to take full advantage of every gift that she had to offer. And all she would ask in return was one small thing: she wanted William Adama to help her discover who Shelly Godfrey really was. They would become joined at the hip. Shelly Godfrey would help the fleet to survive, and William Adama would help her to grow.

It had never occurred to Shelly that Adama might pass her on to others, so she was completely unprepared for the arrival of not one but two men. When she heard the hatch open, she turned her head; she saw the commander, and a smile that exuded genuine warmth lit her features. Then she looked past Adama to the second man—a civilian, an intruder- and her eyes went wide with shock. She heard the commander make the introduction, but it didn't register. Whoever he was, he wasn't supposed to be here. This moment was for her and Adama alone; didn't the commander understand that she had a great gift to bestow, and that only he could receive it? Shelly had never felt so betrayed; indeed, until this very moment the word itself had been nothing more than an abstraction, a meaningless concept buried in a rarely accessed subroutine. She turned back to Adama, and when his eyes found hers, she defied him to look away. Shelly Godfrey's eyes filled with reproach, and she permitted the pain that was consuming her to play across her delicate features. In the silence of her mind, she screamed at Adama to send the stranger away, screamed at him _to help her_! Bare minutes earlier Shelly Godfrey had been on the edge of hysteria, and now it had given way to full-blown panic. The young machine knew nothing of repressed tension, or the consequences of its too sudden release.

Given the character and history of the man, it was predictable from the outset that Commander William Adama would misinterpret the emotional maelstrom that greeted him when he stepped into his quarters. The Cylon female was on her knees, shackled and seemingly helpless. This put Bill instantly on the defensive; he had no fantasies in this regard, and he would have much preferred to find Shelly Godfrey in a more dignified position—to wit, on her feet. Thus the commander was already off balance when he looked down into those lovely cylon eyes, and straight into the hell that awaited him there. In William Adama's mind, Shelly Godfrey's eyes had, without warning, become a deep well filled with betrayal and reproach, and the pain that he read there speared him with such force that he was driven backward. Bill stepped back, but his eyes never wavered; he couldn't have looked away to save his soul. In one vital respect, the autopsy that Major Cottle had performed on Leoben had already told Bill everything that he needed to know about Shelly Godfrey. Whatever else she was, the Cylon was undeniably a young and very beautiful woman. "_Oh gods no,_" he thought, "_not on my ship!_" The horror of it was a whirlpool in his mind, guilt that threatened to suck him down.

Although he would never concede the point, William Adama was in reality a reasonably decent and honorable man. He did not believe in the gods, but he was pious in his own way, and duty was his commandment. His first duty was to the mission, but he would recklessly endanger neither his ship nor the lives under his command. He was especially scrupulous with regard to the treatment of prisoners because he understood that, in any conflict, hatred of the enemy could easily turn into abuse of the enemy. And no one, in any command, was as vulnerable as a female prisoner—especially a beautiful female prisoner. William Adama had memorized the relevant paragraphs of the Colonial Articles of War, and he was acutely aware that the generic character of their language did not permit him to draw fine distinctions between human and Cylon prisoners. Strictly speaking, however, the Articles were irrelevant because there were certain lines that Bill would never cross, and the sexual abuse of a prisoner, _any prisoner_, was one of them.

. . .

There were women in the whirlpool now, all the women who had entered his long life only to discover the sharp edge of his selfishness. Bill thought that his indifference must have summoned them to serve as silent witnesses to his latest betrayal. Now he could add a Cylon to this most personal of lists. Why had he not thought to assign at least one female marine to Shelly Godfrey's escort? How could he be so uncaring?

The eddy spun faster and faster, dragging Bill ever deeper into those lovely cylon eyes. John Bierns was only standing a few feet away but for the moment, at least, he had ceased to exist. This was a very good thing for all concerned because Bierns was trapped in a vortex of his own, and he was not about to admit anyone to a place where no one should ever go.

. . .

The hatch had opened, and Major John Bierns had trailed the commander into his quarters. Adama's bulk had so far blocked his view of the prisoner, but Bierns knew that he was about to meet another Six. The concise description that he had elicited from Felix Gaeta had told him that much, but no more. He had carefully avoided asking Gaeta too many questions: the young lieutenant was observant, and Bierns did not want to arouse post hoc suspicions. Hence for all his premonitions the major did not actually see Shelly Godfrey until Adama stepped aside, tendered the introduction. The Six did not even acknowledge him. Instead she had leapt instantly upon Adama, and pulled him into a universe of her own making. Neither the human nor the Cylon saw, therefore, the deep wounds that for a very long moment marked the major's normally placid features. The mask had slipped quickly back into its accustomed place, but it only served to conceal the anguish that daily feasted on Bierns' soul. He had seen many Cylons in his day, but only two in such evident pain, a Three and a Six. John Bierns had long feared the moment when a Shelly Godfrey might cross his path because she was the stuff of nightmares that had long ago turned to dreams, dreams so potent that they had made him feel like a voyeur. And now the apparition had transformed itself into reality. It was kneeling at his feet.

The major's gaze flicked back and forth between the Six and the commander. The Cylon and the human, he noted, were caught up in an intricate dance, sharing pain that could not possibly come from a common source. There was a very strong undercurrent in the room; Bierns sampled its texture, and found it to be intensely erotic. In truth, the pair reminded him of nothing quite as much as lovers in the middle of their first quarrel. Bierns really did feel like a voyeur, but he knew that the slightest movement on his part would break the spell. Then a ridiculous notion popped into his head. Naturally, the idea that "these two should get a room" was immediately followed by the rueful concession that he was standing in it. Bierns wanted to laugh, if only because laughter was the sole antidote for what haunted his dreams.

His thoughts flew unbidden to another tortured soul on _Galactica's_ decks, and his demeanor instantly turned serious. She was one of the fleet's greatest secrets, and Shelly Godfrey's arrival on the scene had inadvertently placed her in great danger. Bierns glanced once more at the commander. _He is literally staring at the truth, but he doesn't see it, and it may well be that … he doesn't want to._ The major desperately hoped that he was reading Adama correctly because if the commander connected the dots but got the pattern wrong, then John Cavil would have his victory and it would come free of cost. The fleet would succumb to paranoia, people would devour one another, and this small and pitiable shred of humanity would wink out of existence.

The resident spook stood silent and unmoving, but he was deep in thought. For the first time, he actively considered the possibility that Cavil might yet win out in what Richard Adar had accurately styled The Long War.


	6. Chapter 6: Long War: Rise of the Spooks

CHAPTER 6

THE LONG WAR: RISE OF THE SPOOKS

On the first anniversary of the armistice that concluded the Cylon war, a lone colonial officer made his way to a remote outpost in deep space. Armistice Station had been constructed along the agreed boundary that would now separate human from Cylon. It was here that diplomatic relations would be maintained. The Accords stipulated that once a year, on this date, each side would send a representative to this small and desolate place.

The Cylons sent no one.

Thirty-eight more anniversaries passed. Thirty-eight times, in strict conformity with the Accords, a colonial officer made the journey.

The Cylons sent no one.

The human population gradually rebuilt twelve worlds shattered by war, turned their backs on the technology that had brought their lethal creations into existence, and then drank ever more deeply from the waters of Lethe.

Still, their government constructed a vast armada to shield fragile humans from deadly machines. In the end, one hundred and twenty battlestars would guard their worlds; a far larger contingent of ships would support the battlestars.

The men and women of the colonial fleet were well trained, dedicated professionals. Their vigilance never relaxed. But they made assumptions about their enemy, and one of these assumptions was inherently flawed.

Humans appreciated the pace of evolution; they understood that in the grand scheme of things forty years was but an instant. For four decades, the admirals who commanded the fleet assumed that the Cylons would eventually return. They never lost sight of the difference between an armistice and peace. But they also assumed that, when they returned, the Cylons would still look very much the same.

The Colonial Secret Service made no such assumptions.

Neither law nor presidential edict gave rise to the CSS: it was born spontaneously and out of grim necessity. During the war, there had come a point when the Cylons controlled more than seventy percent of Tauron's surface. Other planets were also overrun. The Cylons had allowed themselves to be drawn into a ground war, and it was this tactical mistake that spawned the CSS. A ground war turns on logistics: human and centurion alike had to be resupplied. Highly trained teams of human commandos penetrated enemy lines, looking for targets of opportunity. They went after fuel dumps and ammunition storage depots, but they also went after the Cylons themselves. Centurions were drawn into deadly ambushes and impromptu minefields. When a centurion was blown apart, metallic limbs often scattered the ground. The Cylons gathered their dead, and whether it was to mourn a fallen comrade or recycle useful parts did not really matter to their enemy. Booby traps littered the battlefield. The commandos were resourceful and unorthodox—and on Tauron the most cunning of their number was a man named Joshua Pinkert.

The newly formed government of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol understood that an armistice marks only a temporary cessation of hostilities. It was feared that the Cylons might have withdrawn solely to regroup, and that the war might resume at any moment. The commandos had proven their worth, and the newly elevated General Pinkert was accordingly asked to organize, supply, and embed them on every colony. The Colonial Secret Service was the end product of this directive.

The CSS thus began life as an elite paramilitary unit, and as the fleet mushroomed in size, it receded more and more into the background. Joshua Pinkert and his successor, General Harlan Berriman, both liked it this way. With no declared enemy to fight, they turned their energies increasingly to intelligence gathering, but they remained true to their paramilitary roots. Domestic terrorists, organized criminal gangs, pirates preying on commercial traffic in deep space— in exigent circumstances, presidents always looked to the spooks for solutions that skirted and sometimes went well beyond the boundaries of colonial law.

Generals Pinkert and Berriman personally recruited virtually every officer who signed on with the CSS. They were looking for men and women with a singular ambition: an unflinching dedication to truth. The spooks looked for it in others, but always with the hope of discovering it within themselves. They valued the lies that other men told because the patterns would always lead them to the secrets that such men held dear. They stripped away illusion, and taught themselves never to be surprised by what the truth finally yielded. Truth was their one sacrament. Operational imperatives might occasionally require them to lie to one another, but their generals drilled it into them that they must never, under any circumstances, lie to themselves.

Because they would not flinch in the face of even the most horrific truths, it took Joshua Pinkert's agents less than three years to piece together the broad outlines of the new Cylon battle plan. It was a question of body parts and DNA, and numbers that didn't add up. During the last years of the war, the Cylons had not been content simply to kill their former masters—they had moved on to dismembering them. Whether this was a deliberate tactic meant to inspire terror or an otherwise meaningless gesture that graphically testified to their swelling hatred of mankind no one could decide, but at war's end it dramatically slowed the process of accounting for the dead. There were millions of intact corpses both in and out of the ground, and for these the records were relatively good. But there were also millions of assorted body parts, and the only way to marry them up was through DNA analysis. There wasn't enough equipment, and the needed expertise was in short supply, so it took more than two years just to get a handle on the problem. It became increasingly obvious, however, that somewhere between five and six million people had simply disappeared. Local authorities collected millions of reports to this effect, including one from a girl named Helena Cain, who testified that her younger sister had been captured and taken away on a departing cylon spacecraft. All of these statements were passed on to planetary authorities, and ultimately to the Colonial Secret Service.

CSS analysts also took a very close look at the daily logs of every ship in space, both military and civilian. What they found there only served to whet their suspicions. They were particularly intrigued by an after action report filed on the last day of the war by a young Viper pilot named William "Husker" Adama. Husker had been shot down over an ice planet, and had literally ejected into the heart of a cylon research facility. There he had found more than fifty men, women and children from a missing Gemenese freighter, the _Diana,_ being used in a medical experiment. What the young lieutenant had witnessed did not make for easy reading, but the ground war had given the spooks first-hand exposure to the many faces of atrocity. They did not have faint hearts, and the search for truth urged them on. Dispassionately, they judged the experiment to be well advanced. What Adama had found in a vat filled with a kind of reddish goo really caught their attention; it had inspired Pinkert to pull the young lieutenant in for an intensive debriefing. Adama didn't know it, but he had supplied the CSS with the single most critical piece of a puzzle that took almost three years to solve.

The analysts mulled it over, and when they were sure that they have fought their way through to the truth, they delivered their findings. The Cylons, they concluded, were attempting to complement or even supplant the standard centurion with bioorganic technology. They had abundant human material on which to experiment, and appeared already to have made substantial progress. The CSS study specifically raised the possibility that the next generation of Cylons would include biosynthetic machines based on the human prototype. The summary of their conclusions that Joshua Pinkert personally delivered to the president's office put it more bluntly still: the Cylons were in all probability trying to create machines that would pass for human.

General Pinkert moved the Armistice Line to the very top of the Colonial Secret Service's watch and wait list. He recruited entire teams of hardware and software designers, who rewarded him with a Raptor whose shielded electronic suite, both active and passive, far exceeded the capabilities of any other ship in human space. He began to deploy his assets, both human and electronic, and he did not stop until he had thrown a net over the entire armistice zone. The electronic package allowed his pilots to scan for activity on the Cylon side of the frontier, and doing so became an integral part of the ongoing mission. Joshua Pinkert could think of only one tactical use for a biosynthetic machine built to these design specifications, and that was infiltration. When the Cylons came, the Colonial Secret Service would be ready for them.

The years passed. A decade came and went. State-of-the-art electronics notwithstanding, the service's sophisticated Raptors had an enormous volume of space to sweep, and the exercise increasingly began to resemble the proverbial hunt for a needle in a haystack. Fearing that the Cylons would find their presence provocative, the steadily expanding fleet of battlestars was kept clear of the armistice zone. Not surprisingly, pirates, drug runners, fugitives, terrorists and other sterling representatives of humanity's seedy underbelly flocked there in droves. The zone was a safe haven, effectively beyond the reach of law, and even CSS electronics were hard pressed to distinguish FTL jumps that had started in human space from … the other.

A second decade elapsed, marked by the death of General Joshua Pinkert. As far as anyone could tell, the Cylons had still failed to put in an appearance. Or, as General Harlan Berriman liked to put it, "they may already be here, but we've been unable to detect them." The lack of results never tried his patience; the effort remained ongoing, and thirteen years before the holocaust it finally began to bear fruit. "It fell," the general recorded in one of his own log entries, "from the most unlikely of trees."

Berriman had travelled to the National University of Caprica to interview a graduating senior, a young man barely beyond his twenty-first birthday. The student had been brought to his attention by contacts on the faculty. There was nothing unusual in this. Like his predecessor, the general maintained back door contacts with university faculty throughout the colonies, primarily men and women with a connection to the fleet or one of the security services. They brought promising candidates to the service's attention. What was highly unusual, and Berriman thought perhaps even unprecedented, was that no less than four members of the faculty, independent of one another, had recommended this particular student to him. Exceptional computer and analytic skills, he was told, and a truly staggering affinity for language. A preliminary background check further revealed that the youngster was an orphan—always a plus in the general's eyes. Potential recruits without attachments were highly valued because they tended to see the CSS as family, and often looked to the commanding officer as a father figure. Their loyalty to the service was notoriously intense.

Harlan had decided to undertake the initial screening in person. He invited the student to lunch, and discreetly took his measure. Quiet and serious to the point of being remote, the general thought. But at the same time tough and emotionally self-sufficient—character traits that he shared with the thousands upon thousands of children who, a generation earlier, had been orphaned by the Cylon war. The head spook had made his pitch, and then he had sat back to field questions. Surprisingly, the young man had had only one query to make, and it was distinctly odd. He had asked the general whether the service required a physical examination. The question had triggered alarm bells in Harlan's head, and his reply was predictably oblique. He had frowned, and countered with a question of his own: would a physical pose a problem? Not at all, he was assured, but the student advised him to supplement the usual blood work with a thorough study of his DNA. Check for genetic drift, he told the general, before urging Berriman to assign the physical to someone in whom he had absolute trust—someone who could be relied upon to put the one and only copy of the results on Harlan's desk. It was transparently obvious that the results were going to be exceedingly strange, so the young man's parting comment- that their next meeting would undoubtedly occur in the deepest corner of the most secure facility that Berriman had at his disposal—struck the general as crudely manipulative.

The commander of the Colonial Secret Service was not an easy man to surprise, but this interview had caught Harlan Berriman completely off guard. The spook was supposed to have been the one in charge, but the more he thought about it the more he wondered whether the luncheon had ever been his to control. He had a nasty suspicion that, however improbable it might seem, the NUC student had actually been planning this meeting for years. Hence there was nothing haphazard about the background check that Harlan initiated when he returned to his office. Fingerprints on a water glass that he had oh so carefully pocketed gave him a place to start. The gaps that now began to emerge caused those alarm bells in his head to start ringing louder and louder. A baby, approximately two weeks old, had been abandoned in a filthy Virgon alleyway. The details of the police report had made Berriman cringe. After he had been released from a nearby hospital, the infant had been sent to an orphanage run by the Little Sisters of Mercy, an adjunct to the temple of Persephone. The child had never been successfully placed, and had remained in the orphanage for the next thirteen years. When questioned, the sisters all remembered the little boy; exceptionally intelligent and reasonably well adjusted until around the age of nine, when for no apparent reason he had become moody and withdrawn. And they recalled nightmares—years and years of nightmares, screams summoning them in the middle of the night to cradle a small child drenched in sweat and trapped in some sheer, unadulterated terror that only he could see. But nightmares, they had gone on to stress, weren't all that unusual in this facility. Far too many children had seen their parents die at the hands of centurions; nightmares were the defining characteristic of their generation.

Then the child had abruptly disappeared, only to resurface a year later on Caprica, where he had been enrolled in the ultra-expensive Academy of Apollo. Harlan had no difficulty envisioning the interplanetary flight; it was strictly illegal for a minor to travel unattended between planets, but there were ways to circumvent the problem, and the adolescent had obviously found the means to purchase the solution. It would have taken _a lot of money_, Harlan mused, to open the Academy's doors—money and another round of forged papers that would not have come cheap. Harlan made a mental note to ask the young man how, for four years, he had successfully finessed the obligatory parent-teacher rituals. After that, it would have been easy. Stellar grades would have brought him legitimate admission to NUC, but a cursory glance at his transcript posed a whole new round of questions. The selection of courses seemed almost random until the general shifted his attention from the curriculum to the instructors. Berriman's instincts kicked in, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the student had deliberately chosen teachers with rumored or acknowledged ties to the military. He had been trying to leave a track across a very select set of DRADIS screens. The professional spook in Berriman marveled at the calculated effort that must have gone into the whole exercise. The general was absolutely convinced that an adolescent child had been maneuvering for years to get to that luncheon interview, and he had dangled bait in front of the head spook which guaranteed that Berriman would reel him in. The seminal question, of course, was _why_?

General Harlan Berriman arranged for an in-house physical examination, and did indeed take the unusual precaution of arranging for a single copy of the results to be generated, and to be surrendered to him with all relevant specimens. The blood work-up would have startled him if he had not been expecting it. It certainly startled the CSS doctor. The twenty-one year old did not belong to any of the thirty identified human blood groups. His blood could be typed, but it was literally unique. At the end of the day, this did not bother the general overmuch. After all, seven of the known blood groups had only been isolated in his lifetime, so an eighth didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. The DNA results were, however, quite a different matter altogether. In a different setting, they would have turned the scientific establishment on its head. Berriman was not a scientist, so the doctor had had to explain the concept of genetic drift to him. There was room for variation within the human genome, he had been told, but one hit the accepted margin at one half of one percent. A two percent deviation crossed the line that separated humans from other primates, and the divorce between species would have taken place on Kobol millions of years in the past. And the genetic drift in the sample that he had just tested, the doctor told an utterly stunned Berriman, _approached two percent_. One DNA sample had just invalidated the entire scientific theory of human evolution.

_Or did it?_ There was a more plausible explanation, Berriman thought. He was seriously willing to consider the possibility that he had now sat down to lunch with a biosynthetic Cylon. The date of "birth," if that term had any conceptual relevance here, would take them back to a point roughly six years after the armistice. And that _really, really_ disturbed the general. How could the Cylons possibly have cleared all of the genetic and engineering hurdles so quickly? It implied a technological gap between man and machine of truly frightening dimensions.

The more General Berriman attacked the problem, the worse it got. What Lieutenant William Adama had glimpsed in that cylon vat was a mature adult, and Adama's discovery was the centerpiece of the Findings of Fact that Joshua Pinkert had submitted to the president. No one, absolutely no one, had ever considered the possibility that biosynthetic Cylons might enter the world as infants, and then grow to adulthood in the same manner as human children. This was truly the stuff of nightmares. The general mentally conceded that abandoned infants would be the perfect vehicle for the insertion of bioengineered machines into human society. The absence of records would not raise any alarms in the aftermath of the war, and the history of each adopted child was, as a matter of course, sealed by the courts. The war had generated hundreds of thousands of orphans, perhaps millions. The spook didn't know the actual number, but he would have to find out because there was one very alarming fact already in his possession. As they reached adulthood, _those orphaned by the war had flooded the colonial fleet_. Multiple studies had demonstrated that the fleet psychologically served as a kind of surrogate family for young men and women who often had no memories of their own parents. The CSS also had its fair share of orphans; Berriman himself had long favored recruitment from this particular source. Now he began to wonder if the colonial fleet, and his own service, had unwittingly invited some very deadly vipers into their nests.

The general's thoughts went round and round. Why would the Cylons draw attention to themselves in so contrived and melodramatic a fashion? How could they be so confident that he would take the bait? In the end, the head spook chose to concentrate on the first question because the latter was ultimately irrelevant. He simply could not walk away from the prize that had been dangled so openly in front of him. _Oh yes, there most certainly was _going to be a second interview, and it would take place inside an asteroid whose only tenant was the Colonial Secret Service. Harlan grudgingly offered the enemy the tip of an imaginary hat. If the NUC student really was a Cylon, then someone on the other side had been clever enough to figure out that the most economic way for the machines to penetrate the CSS was to come boldly knocking on the door, and demand admission. The spooks would welcome a double agent into their ranks with open arms. There was always a pattern to betrayal, and the pattern would uncover the vulnerabilities that the enemy deemed worthy of exploitation. In the Long War, this was the most coveted truth of them all.


	7. Chapter 7: Long War: Turning the Corner

**WARNING: READERS ARE CAUTIONED THAT THIS IS A DARK CHAPTER, WITH SOME SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE**

CHAPTER 7

THE LONG WAR: TURNING THE CORNER

Three weeks after the luncheon, a pair of equally nondescript CSS agents intercepted the prospective recruit as he walked across the NUC campus. It was Colonial Day, and the university grounds were all but deserted. The agents identified themselves, and politely asked the young student whether he would be willing to accompany them to an undisclosed location for a follow-on interview. General Berriman, they informed him, would once again be taking the lead. The two agents had been firmly instructed not to come back empty handed, but the head spook did not believe that coercion would really prove necessary. To the contrary, the general openly wondered which of them wanted this confrontation more.

The three men soon approached an unmarked van, where still another CSS agent was waiting behind the wheel. As John Bierns started to climb into the van, he felt a sharp, stinging sensation on the right side of his neck—and then he felt nothing at all.

. . .

When Bierns awoke, he found himself lying on a gunmetal gray mattress, which was the only item of furniture in an otherwise featureless room. Long but narrow, the rectangular chamber was painted a very bright white. The lighting was uniform and intense; it bounced off the floor, the walls, and the high ceiling. There wasn't much to see, but Bierns discovered that he had to shield his eyes with a raised hand in order to see anything at all. Nor was there anything to hear. The chamber was literally devoid of sound—not even the faint hum of an air circulating system disturbed the absolute quiet. Bierns did not know where he was, nor did he know how much time had passed. His watch was gone, and with it all of his clothing. The student was now dressed in a drab and shapeless hospital gown; they had even taken his shoes.

And that, he reckoned, was a mistake. The room struck Bierns as a fairly obvious sensory deprivation chamber, a chamber designed to disorient its occupant and thereby soften him up for interrogation. But the floor was cold, uncomfortably so, and the stinging sensation on the soles of his feet more than compensated for the absence of sound and the stillness of the surrounding air.

Bierns found that he was extremely thirsty, perhaps dehydrated. He guessed that the drug the agent had administered was still in his system. _Either_ _that_, he thought, _or they slipped me a second chemical cocktail while I was out. _Bierns idly wondered whether a person could be questioned and, after the event, have no recollection of what had taken place. He didn't know, so he felt along both sides of his neck, and visually checked the other places that doctors universally favored when drawing blood or giving patients an injection. He found the spot where the original hypodermic had gone in easily enough, but he could not locate a second such puncture mark, and in due course gave up the search.

Bierns felt no inclination to pace the chamber and thereby measure its dimensions, so he decided to lie down once more on the bare mattress. He had cultivated patience to a degree unusual in someone so young, and he routinely practiced breathing exercises as part of his regular physical training regimen. He allowed both mind and body to drift, and soon he was once more fast asleep.

Bierns went through several such sleep-wake-sleep cycles. The prickly stubble on his cheeks told him that one or two days had already passed, so he was surprised to discover that, while his thirst persisted, he had not grown hungry. He thought about speaking, if only to interrupt the deadening silence, but decided against it. Berriman had set the rules for this particular game, and Bierns was determined to wait him out.

Without warning, the silence was punctuated by a high-pitched, metallic noise. He jerked in response: the sound reminded him of a circular saw biting into dense metal or ceramic. It was irritating, to be sure, but a disciplined mind could shrug it off. Bierns got down on the floor, crossed his legs, took several cleansing tidal breaths, and turned inward. The sound gradually faded from his mind, and when the lighting system rapidly began to wink off and on in a completely random manner, he paid it no attention at all. He had become a single grain of sand on a long and narrow beach. A Cylon would have said that he was projecting.

. . .

The general gave his most experienced team of interrogators four days to soften up the subject. Each time that Bierns had drifted into sleep, the interrogation team had flooded the chamber with progressively greater amounts of dioxycephalene. This was a cutting edge hallucinogenic, specifically tailored for airborne delivery. Once this had taken hold in Bierns' nervous system, other chemicals had been added to the mix. Triptolemene was the key. This was a viciously effective anxiety-inducing agent that had never failed to bring a subject's most deep seated fears surging to the surface. After ninety-six hours in the White Room, anyone without formal training in the arcane art of resisting interrogation should have been curled up in a fetal position, eyes tightly shut, hands uselessly clamped over outraged ears. There was nothing in what had now become an impressively thick file to suggest that John Bierns had ever received such training, yet he still managed to ward off the constant assault on his senses. The head spook toyed with the idea of reaching even deeper into his grab bag of hallucinogenic agents, but he suspected that the young student would swat other drugs aside as easily as he had defeated the entire carefully packaged sensory deprivation/overload sequence. Berriman and his team were going nowhere fast, so he concluded that a less orthodox approach was now in order.

The general killed the necessary switches, opened a well concealed door, and entered the chamber. He sat a large glass of water near the student, and then knelt on the floor in front of him. "Let's talk," Berriman said.

. . .

Bierns slowly swam out of the light trance state in which he had taken refuge, and stared at the spook. He had only one question, and he had been waiting for years to address it to someone in a position to furnish the answer. "So," he said, "have you been able to determine who, or better yet, _what I am_?"

Berriman had not anticipated that Bierns would go on the offensive, much less that he would go so directly for the jugular, but the spook recovered quickly. The general inhabited a world rife with hidden agendas and conspiracy, so he had discounted the more straightforward behavioral analyses that had landed on his desk. The psychiatric evaluation had, however, heavily stressed the fact that they were dealing with someone orphaned at birth. The report concluded that the subject, once he became aware of the anomalies in his biology, might reasonably be expected to turn over a number of fairly obvious rocks in the search for answers. The irony of someone trying to drag answers out of an agency as close-mouthed as the Colonial Secret Service was not lost on Harlan Berriman, but he was willing to consider the possibility. He gazed thoughtfully at Bierns; the conversation was being recorded, and Berriman knew that his analysts would put the young man's reaction to what he was about to say next under a magnifying glass.

"Actually," the head spook replied, "we were rather hoping that you could answer that question for us."

"Frak," a visibly frustrated Bierns said in response. "Do you mean that I did all of this for nothing?"

Seconds passed while Berriman weighed the merits of several different replies. "Not necessarily. Tell me, John, when did you begin to suspect that you were not like … other people?"

"When I was eight, maybe nine- that's when I began to wonder. But it took a couple of more years before I knew for sure. I had to learn how to draw blood, and then study it under a microscope. What I found on the slide … I can't say that it really surprised me."

"Is that why you ran away from the orphanage, and then got off Virgon altogether?"

"No. I was running, all right, but not to get away from the orphanage. The Sisters … they weren't exactly little, and they didn't show much mercy, but I had no real complaints. They were actually pretty kind. It was the priest; I was running away from the priest. He killed my mother: I'm sure of it."

This astonishing statement was delivered in such a matter-of-fact tone that it left the general at a loss for words. He had committed the relevant police and hospital records to memory. Both stipulated that the infant discovered in that garbage-strewn Virgon alleyway was approximately two weeks old. Berriman didn't know much about children- the CSS was the only bride that he had ever taken- but he was confident that no one had coherent memories of what they had experienced during the first two weeks of life. _At least,_ the general chided himself, _no human could have such memories._ Cybernetic technology self-evidently would take them into uncharted territory, but it would also nicely explain the otherwise inexplicable. The head spook knew that the two weeks following his birth was the only period in which John Bierns could conceivably have had contact with his mother. The orphanage's own highly detailed file excluded any other possibility for the simple reason that it showed a complete lack of outside interest in the child. Thirteen years had come and gone without a single visitor, man or woman; even the boy's teachers had never had occasion to stop by the home.

Gut instinct told Harlan Berriman that the long years of patient waiting were about to come to an end. The White Room had elicited many truths in its day, but this would put everything else to shame. The general sensed that, in the next few minutes, he would at long last glimpse the face of the enemy.

"John, can you describe your mother?" Berriman's tone was encouraging, almost insistent.

"She was beautiful, but very, very sad." Bierns raised his hands as if to ward off a blow. "I'm sorry," he sighed; "I know that's not helpful."

"And the priest?" The general's voice was little more than a whisper, after which he literally held his breath.

Bierns turned inward, summoning memories that took him into a tortured past.

"An old man, somewhere in his mid-sixties to early seventies. Medium height and weight. Fair-skinned, black hair not yet touched with gray. An angry, brooding face, but curiously, one still largely unmarked by the passage of time. That seems somehow … unfair. Pouting lips, a perpetual smirk. It's the face of a man who knows the punch line to a joke that nobody else understands. His body language radiates smug superiority. He's very, very sure of himself, and contemptuous of everybody else. But it's the eyes that really capture the man. They're black as the darkest night, but at the same time they spit fire. They're the eyes of Cerberus, the eyes of a sociopath. Life means nothing to him. He's killed many times, with never a second thought, and he'll go on killing until somebody stops him. If Death has a face, then it's the face of Brother Cavil."

"That's the priest's name, then … Brother Cavil?" The spook's voice was calm, but his body was rigid with tension.

"He has others." Bierns stared hard at the floor without actually seeing it. Unconsciously, he crossed his arms and began gently to rock back and forth. "Sometimes, my mother would call him One … and sometimes, when she wanted to provoke him, John. That always made him angry."

"John Cavil." The general allowed the name to tumble through his mind. The personification of evil, the shadowy face of an enemy no longer imaginary. A Cylon.

"And your mother," the general gently queried, "what was her name?"

"Three," Bierns replied without hesitation. "Cavil regularly called her Three, but there were times when she answered to … D'Anna. But I think that my mother had another name, one that I never learned. I remember what Cavil said just before he shot her. He was mocking her. 'Three, I'm going to send your pup to live with the humans', he said. 'Our collective's myopic obsession with consensus doesn't generate the stimuli the whelp will need to grow. Ah, but humans, with their petty ambitions and jealousies, their fears and fantasies, and above all else, their pathetic need for love—they'll push him in all sorts of interesting directions. We'll find out what he can do. Why, I'll even give him a great gift. He'll carry my name … and a reasonable facsimile of yours'! But One wasn't being kind or merciful. The sadistic bastard wrote my name on a piece of paper. He held it up for my mother to read, and then he jammed it onto a long needle. She was nursing me. Cavil took my hand, placed it against her chest, and then he pushed the needle right through my hand, deep into her ribcage. I screamed. She cursed him for a monster, and then he shot her. She was the last to die, the last of six."

Bierns idly raised his left hand, and inspected it as if seeing it for the first time. He looked intently at the general.

"I remember being born," he said, "and don't ask me how because anything that I might say in response would be speculative at best. I even have memories from within the womb—the third trimester for sure, possibly the second. But they're not my memories. It's more like a day-to-day record of what my mother witnessed and experienced, which she somehow managed to imprint upon my brain. They stop at the precise moment she died. That's when the nightmares began."

Bierns rolled his hand back and forth, back and forth, reliving the searing pain that had consumed him when the needle struck home. He could still taste the raw terror that had overwhelmed him in that fraction of a second when his mother's warm and comforting presence had suddenly vanished. He would never forget the black void that had swallowed him whole, nor his rebirth into a universe of nightmares. For eight long years, the horror of those final seconds of his mother's life haunted his sleep. His was a nightmare without end because it wasn't really a nightmare at all. At an inhumanly early age, John Bierns had discovered that there were real monsters on the prowl, and that the worst of them walked on two feet.

_Two Cylons,_ Berriman thought. _He's given me two Cylons—and baby makes three_. The general decided that it was time to get Bierns' confession formally on record.

"John, you're quite sure of the phrasing? _I'm going to send your pup to live with the humans?_"

"Yes, and I've had years to think about the implications. It's screamingly obvious that I'm not human, but General, it does not follow that I'm cylon. There is another possible, even more compelling explanation. Considering how many millions of people vanished during the war, I may well be a half-breed. It's safe to assume that my mother was a Cylon, and I'm clearly the product of some bizarre medical experiment involving artificial insemination. It all makes sense if we start from the presumption that my father was a human captive—some anonymous, involuntary sperm donor. I was really hoping that your people could arrive at the truth."

A deep bitterness etched John Bierns' voice, a bitterness born from a lifetime of uncertainty and frustration, the fruit of something far worse than loneliness. Humans might be alone, humans might know loneliness, but they were rarely both lonely and alone; even the most wretched of their number knew what they were, knew their place in the universe. In the worst possible way, John Bierns was unique. He had no home, no family; he did not even have the saving grace of knowing what he was. He was alone in a way that neither Harlan Berriman nor any other human could hope to comprehend. Berriman and Bierns were both looking for answers—the same answers in fact, but to two very different sets of questions.

Bierns stared at the spook; he stared hard. He demanded the general's full attention because he had never shared the details of his nightmares with anyone, and he did not know how many times he could tell this story without breaking down completely.

John Bierns told Harlan Berriman everything. The dissections, the agonizing deaths—he spared the general none of it. The head spook was a hard man. His job did not permit him the luxury of a conscience, and he had seen and heard things in his lifetime, had done things that would have cost most men their sanity. He sincerely believed that nothing could reach him. He was wrong.

. . .

John Bierns was eight years old when, without warning, in his mind the cycle began anew. There were the same seven players—the elderly priest, an identical pair of Threes, and four other beautiful young women for whom, initially, he had no names. One set of twins was fair and blond, and beautiful in a way that made him think of angels. The other set had glistening black hair, and dark, slanting eyes—twin whirlpools of compassion and kindness that made his child's heart ache with longing. In time, he came to know them as Sixes and Eights.

The half dozen females were immobilized in the very chamber that was home to his nightmares, only this time the dream played itself out in his waking state. To John, it felt like he was hiding somewhere in the room, able to see and hear everything that transpired around him. The eight year old repeatedly tried to run away, to find some way out of that terrible prison, but no door or window ever beckoned. He was forced to observe as centurions laid the six naked and unconscious women upon their various couches. He could not turn away when the priest severed their Achilles tendons, attached electrodes, inserted tube after tube between their splayed legs, into their stomachs—everything hooked up to machines scattered throughout the room. Then came the restraints, heavy leather straps pulled so tight that the six victims could flex neither arm nor leg. Even their heads were immobilized.

Two months passed, and John Bierns awoke one morning to find two of the couches now empty. A Three and a Six had disappeared during the night. The priest offered no explanation to the four tormented souls who continued to receive his daily ministrations, but months later, when their stomachs all began to bulge, the child correctly guessed that they had been taken away because they weren't making babies.

The culling continued. A morning came when Cavil entered the chamber in his usual way, but with a tray of highly polished medical instruments in tow. In the right hands, those instruments could save life, but in the wrong hands they could take it. John Cavil was no physician, and he was very much intent on doing harm.

The Eight received no anesthetic, never mind the merciful oblivion delivered by a bullet to the brain. One simply picked up a scalpel, and without preamble proceeded to slice her open. The Eight screamed and screamed, giving voice not so much to her own terrible pain as to her fear for the tiny and infinitely precious life growing inside her. John did not understand how he could know such things, but he knew nonetheless that the abomination held little interest for the priest. It was the placenta that he was after. To be sure, he would dissect the fetus and add what little it had to offer to his store of knowledge, but the placenta that he now ripped from the Eight's distended belly was the real object of his attention. One held the bloody mass of tissue in his hands, oblivious to the massive hemorrhaging that was rapidly claiming the Eight's life. She died, mourned only by her three captive sisters, whose own fates were now all too horrifyingly clear. The Eight's only requiem was the steady stream of curses, most of them directed at people named Ellen and Galen, which Cavil delivered over his microscope. The three remaining pregnant Cylons struggled against their restraints, each obeying some deeply implanted instinct to shelter their babies beneath protective arms. All in vain.

The three deaths that followed were all hard, but the slow and painful dissection of the Three in the eighth month of her pregnancy was, for John Bierns, traumatic in the extreme. She was the mirror image of his mother, down to the smallest detail. In infancy he had lived her death; now, in childhood, he was forced to suffer it yet again. The little boy to whom she would have given birth mere weeks later also went under the knife. Watching that death told John in no uncertain terms what he had escaped nine years earlier. He understood that he was lucky to be alive.

The surviving Eight and Six eventually gave birth within three hours of one another, to a boy and girl respectively. Perhaps the priest wanted a matched set, perhaps he had some convoluted plan in mind, or perhaps his was a completely random choice, but in any event it was the Eight and her infant son whom he chose to dissect later than day. The afterbirth monopolized most of his attention, but he did not neglect the newborn's brain. He carefully sliced it open, searching for something, and just as clearly not finding it.

A week after the birth of her daughter, Cavil came for the Six. John had steeled himself against this moment, which he knew must inevitably come, but the contrast between the lethal weapon in the priest's hand and the beatific scene that awaited him in the birthing chamber was too stark. The Six, her arms finally freed to cradle her daughter with muscles that electrical impulses had kept firm over the intervening months, was feeding the child at her breast. The Six was more than alive: she literally glowed. For months on end she had looked so lost, so uncomprehending, so totally out of her depth—a tragic being trying to understand a fate that was beyond the reach of her imagination. But the birth of this tiny and fragile child had closed a switch somewhere inside her, and the Six had come fully to life. Intelligence and purpose now gleamed in eyes hitherto vacuous—a transformation so sudden and complete that it made the nine year old believe in miracles. The transformation only served to infuriate John Cavil.

One railed at the Six, cursed the bitch to which she had given birth. Her usefulness was at an end, he said, and now she would be boxed. It was an odd turn of phrase, one that tended to stick in the mind. John had heard it only once before, in that last bitter exchange that had culminated with his mother's murder. He presumed that it was a callous allusion to the coffin in which she would soon be buried, but he wasn't quite sure. One day, perhaps, he would learn more.

For reasons that he did not disclose, the priest once again chose to spare the child. She had an honest-to-goodness aunt, Cavil had gloated while standing over the Six, a colonial marine no less. The woman was married to a shiftless daydreamer, so the infant would make a tidy addition to an already dysfunctional family. Such a frakked up household, One mockingly assured her, would surely bring out the best in her little girl!

. . .

At the end of this terrible soliloquy, General Harlan Berriman was left to wonder when he might next enjoy an untroubled night's sleep. He had no choice, he realized, but to introduce John Bierns to President Kerlis. Putting the Colonial Secret Service on a formal war footing would require a written presidential directive. He would get it, of that he had no doubt, but he worried that it might be too little, too late. It was painfully evident that the Cylons had never given up on the war; they had merely changed strategies. Now the Colonials would have to play catch-up. Given time, they could level the pyramid court, but the Cylons might not prove so forebearing. The human race stood on the brink of an abyss, at the bottom of which lay enslavement or extermination. The head spook was not at all sure which fate might prove the more invidious.

. . .

On his return to Caprica, Harlan marched straight into the president's office. No, he told the official factotum charged with guarding the door to the inner sanctum, he did not have an appointment; and yes, the president would see him anyway. The general did not even break stride. A few seconds later, the president and the chief spook charged out of the office, and as quickly left the building. Harlan had spoken only two words in Emma Kerlis' presence: CASE OMEGA. They were enough.

Bierns was waiting for them in the presidential gardens. As instructed, he had stationed himself near a fountain which, from Berriman's point of view, emitted a very satisfying roar, although the general would have preferred it to be louder still. There could be no record of this conversation, no entry in an official appointment book. This was to be one of those meetings that never took place, between people who were never there.

Berriman was the first to speak. It took but two terse sentences to snap the president to full attention. It was a testament to her sharply honed political instincts and well deserved reputation for ruthlessness that no one had ever tagged Emma Kerlis with the obvious, unflattering nickname. While the general spoke, the president examined John Bierns, stripping him bare. When it was the young man's turn to speak, she caught the general's gaze, and minutely lifted her eyebrows. _Are we being played?_ Harlan responded with an equally subtle shrug of the shoulders. _I don't know._ His arms were hanging loosely at his sides, but he casually turned his right hand outward, the palm facing the president. _It doesn't really matter; we have to assume the worst._

When Bierns finished, Emma Kerlis thought about it for a span of two heart beats. "Find them," she snapped. "Whatever it takes."

Berriman immediately retorted that it would take a great deal, and most of all, it would take time.

"General," the president said without hesitation, "you will have written authorization on your desk within the hour." She looked hard at John Bierns. "Give this young man the rank of captain. A freshly-minted lieutenant, even in a service where rank is nothing more than a matter of courtesy, doesn't pull the necessary G's to impress the fleet's movers and shakers."

Thus it was that, thirteen years before the destruction of the colonies, the hunt for the Cylons began in earnest. Over the next five years, John Bierns quietly examined the personnel file of every single person in the colonial military. He put every bureaucrat with an intelligence clearance under a microscope. He scoured the backgrounds of executive and research personnel on the payroll of every firm with a defense contract. He found no one: even the priest had gone to ground.

Well, almost no one. With the full resources of the Colonial Secret Service at his disposal, John Bierns had little difficulty locating his baby sister (for this was how he always thought of the Second Born, the daughter of the Six). The child was now on the cusp of adolescence, and it was clear that her beauty would soon blossom. To John Bierns she seemed very much her mother's daughter- the same expressive eyes, the same striking features and natural blond hair—but years of physical and emotional abuse had already robbed her of the angelic tenderness that so defined the Six. Berriman and Bierns debated bringing her in, but ultimately decided to use her as bait. At some point, they hoped, the aged priest would come round to check on his troubled protégé.

And so Kara Thrace was left to her stepmother's less than tender care. Her adolescence proved as stormy as her childhood, but the general and the First Born promised themselves that, one day, they would make it up to her.


	8. Chapter 8: Angel at My Feet

CHAPTER 8

ANGEL AT MY FEET

The intercom buzzed sharply, abruptly snapping Commander William Adama out of the guilt-ridden reverie into which Shelly Godfrey had dragged him. He strode quickly to the phone; it was Colonel Tigh, calling from the CIC.

"Bill, coordinates have been distributed. All ships report ready for jump."

"Thank you, Colonel. I'm on my way."

_Not_, John Bierns thought, _if I have anything to say about it_. He had heard only half the conversation, but he could guess the rest, and he was not about to allow the commander to flee the emotionally charged confines of his quarters for the relative safety of the CIC. Shelly Godfrey was a gift from the gods, and the sooner Adama recognized that fact the better.

"Excuse me, Commander, but this is a routine jump. _Surely_ Colonel Tigh can execute it without your supervision." Bierns looked pointedly at Adama.

Bill returned the CSS officer's stare for a long moment; then he turned back to the phone. "Saul," he said, "I'm going to be detained. Proceed with the jump, and have Mr. Gaeta reset the clock. Thirty minutes."

_There it is again,_ Shelly Godfrey thought as she watched the tension flow between the two men, _this marvelous human gift for saying one thing and meaning another. _ She caught the way in which the stranger weighted just one word, and thereby implied the exact opposite of what he had actually said. She saw in his pointed stare the unsubtle suggestion that Colonel Saul Tigh couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat. The commander had jumped instantly to his XO's defense, but with a gesture rather than words. Ordering the colonel to execute the jump, she understood, was Adama's way of showing that the XO enjoyed his full confidence.

Shelly Godfrey reluctantly turned away from Adama, and for the first time fully trained her gaze upon the younger man. What she saw did not initially impress her. A youngish man with an undisciplined mop of black hair already tinged here and there with gray. Angular features, an aquiline nose, and a forehead too heavily lined for someone so young. Adama could have told her that, eleven years earlier, those creases had not been there. He had noted them as well, had remarked to himself that the years had not been kind to John Bierns. Whatever the spook had done to earn the nickname Lord High Executioner, it had taken its toll.

Then Shelly Godfrey looked deeply into eyes oddly flecked with both blue and gray, and she realized with a start that there was nothing ordinary about this man at all. William Adama's eyes were intensely alive, mirroring emotions that in her case ran the gamut from instinctive sympathy to full-blown rage. Shelly expected the other man to be equally transparent; more than that, she anticipated thinly veiled hostility—a palpable mix of fear, anger, and loathing for a thing, a programmed killing machine responsible for the deaths of billions, the destruction of entire worlds. This man had every right to hate her, every right, and yet the eyes that studied her were filled with worry and concern. _He cares about me; he's genuinely concerned._ And Shelly couldn't, for the life of her, imagine why. _What could I possibly mean to him? I've done nothing to merit such compassion._ This was not at all like the young soldier who, only minutes earlier, had seen her human side and responded to it. No, this was something different. Her ignorance notwithstanding, a feeling of immense gratitude swept over the Cylon, another powerful sensation for which her programming had not prepared her. In her young life, no one had ever looked at her in quite this way! She had seen lust, contempt, anger, fear, wariness, need. She could not forget the way Adama had responded to her kiss, how badly he had wanted her. There had even been fleeting displays of sympathy, the result of Adama and the young private both forgetting, for a few precious seconds, what she was. But she had never seen lasting concern for her well-being in the eyes of someone who knew her to be cylon. For some reason, she mattered to this young man, and that knowledge made her feel warm inside in a way that a Six not all that long removed from the insular world of the Cylon collective could barely begin to comprehend. Twice now, in less than an hour, Shelly had experienced this sudden surge of warmth, and it was delicious! Shelly felt good about herself; no, better than that, she felt vindicated. To feel so acutely, to grow as an individual—she had renounced her people, willingly surrendered herself to her sworn enemies, and this was her reward. _Surely_ this justified what her brothers and sisters could only construe as high treason!

. . .

John Bierns looked down at Shelly Godfrey, looked past the prim and proper business suit to the woman lurking underneath. He slowly shook his head. _If only she didn't look so lost and vulnerable … and how can she possibly resemble Kara's mother so closely?_ The physical resemblance between the two Sixes was eerie: the one imprinted so indelibly on his mind could have been used as a template for Shelly. The resemblance was truly unfortunate: John dreaded the moment when, inevitably, Shelly and Kara ended up standing side by side. Someone was bound to make the connection, especially since the resemblance was emotional as well as physical. Even John was prepared to concede that his little sister had taken out the patent on lost and bewildered! How would the fleet react when it discovered that _Galactica's_ ace Viper jock could pilot a cylon Raider because she was part cylon herself? Morale would no doubt tank, and paranoia would become the order of the day. And that was just for starters. Everyone knew that, to Bill Adama, Sharon Valerii and Kara Thrace were family. In an unguarded moment, the commander had confessed to John that marriage had brought him two sons, and the fleet two daughters. He dearly loved them both—the one a Cylon sleeper agent, and the other a Cylon-human hybrid. _Gods_, John snorted, _what a frakked up mess. Cavil must be laughing his head off._

Looking down at Shelly Godfrey opened some deep wounds in John's psyche. The Six possessed the raw, undiluted beauty that was the trademark of her model, but her emotions were equally raw. This tore at John: Shelly seemed so vulnerable because, like her sister of old, she had not learned how to mask her feelings. In Shelly Godfrey, the innocence that always made John Bierns think of angels was still unblemished. Bierns let out a long sigh. _Natasi must once have been like this,_ he thought—before she had been corrupted, before she had learned how to deploy her beauty as a weapon that could be used to manipulate and destroy. Natasi had paraded her beauty before him, a classic honey trap that he found vulgar to the point of obscenity. He had used her to reach others, and then he had played upon her growing doubts about the war to double her. Natasi was his most prized asset, her carefully crafted message of peace and reconciliation a critical component of the service's default strategy for humanity's survival. But this didn't mean that John had to like her. To the contrary, he had twice slept with her, and on both occasions the act left him feeling soiled. How a worldly man like Gaius Baltar, who effortlessly drew beautiful women to his bed, could have fallen for someone as wooden and demanding as Natasi simply mystified him.

If Natasi was damaged goods, then Shelly Godfrey was promise itself. John stole a glance at William Adama, and wondered if some sixth sense was warning the poor guy about what was in store for him. A man would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to miss the fact that this particular Six was busily imprinting herself upon the commander. Not for the first time, the spook marveled at the ingenuity that had gone into the design of the three female Cylon models.

Unlike their largely self-sufficient male counterparts, the Three, Sixes, and Eights were, for want of a better word, _incomplete_. Dissatisfied with their current state, each openly yearned for something more. Intensely spiritual, the Threes sought assurance that the cylon was an integral part of God's plan. The Eights were no less spiritual, but they found purpose in the divine commandment to be fruitful and multiply. The Cylons, Bierns knew, had so far failed to produce a child among themselves, and he was convinced that this was by design. He reasoned that sterility among the Cylons was meant to push them into relations with humans: to give the Eights so strong an urge to procreate, and then wholly deny them the ability to conceive, would have been pointlessly cruel. Cavil had used four Eights in his experiments, and all four had achieved viable pregnancies. But these had been the result of artificial insemination. Only time would tell whether Eights and humans could have children the old-fashioned way.

If the Threes and Eights were works of art, Bierns decided, the Sixes could only be described as masterpieces. Their great strength was their adaptability. Within the collective they doubled as engineers and pilots, while in ship-to-ship combat they had proven to be worthy tactical adversaries despite their manifest lack of experience. Where they had really come into their own, however, was as infiltrators in the months prior to the holocaust. While Shelly Godfrey played the role of petty bureaucrat to perfection, the Six languishing in _Galactica's_ brig had proven no less convincing in her performance as a Picon prostitute. In truth, the Sixes did not seem to play roles so much as they lived them. John suspected that the lack of a deeply ingrained personality matrix underwrote their ability to carry out such disparate assignments: the Sixes literally molded themselves to the needs of the moment. But he also suspected that the absence of a well rounded personality made them vulnerable to discovery. Natasi had relied upon naked sensuality to overpower Gaius Baltar; lust had blinded the scientist to idiosyncrasies that might have led another man to the truth. Shelly Godfrey's personality struck John as far less sophisticated than Natasi's, and her lack of emotional control was glaring. She had tried and ultimately failed to penetrate the commander's personal defenses, but Adama admittedly made for a formidable target. There was nothing calculated about his aloofness, and it wasn't simply a matter of shielding himself against the emotional cost of becoming involved with young men and women who might go to their deaths carrying out his orders. John Bierns judged Commander William Adama to be emotionally stunted; his relationship with his son Lee was a wreck, and he had driven his former wife to take refuge in a bottle. Still, when he surveyed this particular battlefield, the spook concluded that Adama didn't stand a chance. Shelly Godfrey wanted him, and in the end Shelly Godfrey would get him. John knew from his own experience that Shelly would gradually reconfigure her own still immature personality to satisfy the commander's unique needs. Six years before the holocaust, one of Shelly's sisters had broken through John's own defenses, and the spook was convinced that no man, however aloof or solitary, could long withstand this kind of assault. _For Kara's sake,_ John thought, _I sincerely hope that the Six gets to Bill sooner rather than later. If he becomes emotionally attached to the Cylon, then he won't abandon Kara_.

_Might as well get on with it,_ John thought. He knelt on the floor beside Shelly Godfrey, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Miss Godfrey … Shelly," he asked, "just what is it that you're doing here?"

. . .

A look of confusion spread across Shelly's face. _What an odd question._ She looked at Bierns, and then up at the commander. "Sir, isn't it obvious? Cavil wanted all of us to engage in acts of sabotage."

"Did you?" Adama's voice was studiously neutral, but there was fire in his eyes.

"I tried … I really tried. One wanted me to implicate Doctor Baltar in the destruction of the Colonies in order to eliminate the threat posed by Baltar's Cylon detection program. Hence the phony security disk that I gave you. But I couldn't do it … I just couldn't." Shelly looked down at the floor, and slowly shook her head in resignation. "So I deliberately put markers on the disk that would make it obvious that it was all a fake." Shelly looked back up at the commander. "I expected you to arrest me, send me to the brig." Shelly's eyes moistened with tears. "Or put me out an airlock," she whispered. "I'm just a stupid, frakked up machine. Broken. Who bothers to keep broken machines?"

"People who know how to fix them," John quietly replied, squeezing her shoulder in encouragement. He badly wanted Shelly to know that she wasn't alone here. "And it's often the case that a repaired machine works a lot better than the original. It's been tested, the flaws found and corrected." He sighed. "We're all machines, Shelly—humans, Cylons … all of us. What you call programming we call DNA. Every day we have to fight against the darkness in our souls; it's always there, threatening to suck us down. Most of the time we win … but not all of the time. There are days when each and every one of us desperately needs help, and if we're lucky, there's always someone there to catch us when we fall. Bill and I are here for you, Shelly, and we won't let you fall….Isn't that right, Bill?" Bierns turned his head and looked up at the commander, challenging him to disagree.

_Ridiculous_, Bill muttered to himself, knowing that he had just been neatly outplayed. _Didn't see that one coming: I must really be getting old_. Stalling for time, Bill slowly dropped to his knees. At his age, squatting in front of the Cylon was out of the question; his joints just couldn't take it. But staying on his feet while Bierns knelt at her side put him at a distinct disadvantage.

He wasn't sure whether the spook wanted him to play the bad cop or not, but Bill wasn't in the mood for games, and he wasn't about to pretend that he understood Bierns' agenda. He had a ship to run, and he needed answers.

"Our water tanks. Do you know who sabotaged the water supply?"

"A sleeper agent, one of the Eights. She's here on _Galactica_—and no, I don't know her name; Cavil never mentioned it."

"And what exactly is a sleeper agent?"

"A Cylon who has been deeply conditioned to believe that he or she is human. Sleepers have absolutely no awareness of their true nature. Their covers are good enough to pass even close inspection, so there are no gaps or contradictions that would trigger self-doubt. Cavil was her controller; he undoubtedly used post-hypnotic suggestions to activate the Eight, and then to erase any awareness of what she was doing." Shelly's eyes went wide as she prepared to plead with Adama. "Commander, please … when you find her … please don't hurt her. _She really doesn't know!_ When she finds out, it's going to tear her apart. And she can't do any more damage … not with Cavil gone."

Bill mulled it over. He was in _way_ over his head here, and he wasn't too proud to admit it. For once, he was glad to have the spook at his side.

"Major, this is your territory, not mine. Can she be … what's the expression … deprogrammed?"

Bierns thought about it for a long moment. "Frankly, Commander, I'm not sure. Generally, to crack the programming you have to have the trigger, and that could be just about anything—a word, a phrase, an object. Passwords, however exotic, are unlikely; there's always an unacceptable risk that the subject will hear the word in conversation, and be inadvertently triggered." He shook his head. "A string code- that's an expression that makes no sense, like a nonsense rhyme-is just about unbeatable. Our best hope is that Cavil was stupid enough to use an object. Amateurs tend to get too cute by half; they read some silly-assed spy thriller and the next thing you know they're running around setting up dead drops or scratch contacts. We'll gather up his belongings, and the subject's when we find her. If it's an object, I can go in and do a patch job—just write over the top of the existing programming, so to speak. More than that requires expertise that I do not possess. We should find out what resources are available in the fleet. I'll talk to Cottle."

Bill nodded in agreement, and then he turned back to Shelly. "Miss Godfrey, I can't make you any promises here. The safety of the ship and the crew must come first, and I'll do whatever I have to do to keep them out of harm's way. Still, you should know that I'm not exactly in the habit of torturing prisoners or shoving them out of airlocks, never mind the fact that the Articles of War frown rather severely upon that sort of thing. Let me make it abundantly clear, however, that Laura Roslin is not governed by the Articles, and she strikes me as the sort of person who obeys the rule of law only when it suits her own purposes. In short, any Cylon in the civilian fleet is in real jeopardy. You would be doing them a real favor if you gave them up. We can bring them aboard _Galactica_, and place them in protective custody while we try to sort out where to go from here."

_Oh we can do much more than that, Bill, much more!_ "Shelly, what the commander is trying to say," Bierns interjected, "is that, amazing as it might seem, no one ever got around to passing a law or issuing an executive order making it a crime to be a Cylon. On this ship, therefore, they would actually have to commit a crime or seriously violate the code of conduct to get sent to the brig. The Eight is obviously subject to arrest, but I can promise you that we're not going to ignore the extenuating circumstances." The spook paused, waiting for Adama to object, but the commander chose to remain silent. "But Roslin and the civvies," Bierns continued, "that's another story altogether. I agree with Bill—any Cylon out in the fleet is in real danger. Roslin will airlock first and ask questions later, so it would be best to get them all on board. There is some risk even on _Galactica_, but it's nothing like the danger they run on the civilian ships."

Shelly looked back and forth between the two men before her eyes once again settled on Adama. "What about me," she asked. "Have I done anything that warrants the brig—or worse?"

"Technically," Bierns hastily replied, "you appear to have committed at least three crimes." The spook didn't want Adama to get anywhere near this part of the conversation. "As the commander just explained, we take a rather dim view of people using the airlock to settle their disputes. But we'll overlook that one; you were clearly acting in self-defense. We'll also give you a pass on your attempt to frame Baltar since you sabotaged that particular project yourself. Besides," Bierns grinned, "there are plenty of people on this ship who were cheering you on!" Bierns knew that the slippery scientist had few fans other than Lieutenant Gaeta. Then he once again turned serious. "That leaves one last item and, frankly, it's not one that we can overlook. By your own admission, you were complicit in an act of sabotage that placed the life of every single being in this fleet at risk … and dehydration is not a very pleasant way to die. The crime itself is punishable by death, and as a matter of law an accessory to a crime is liable to the same penalty as the person who perpetrates it. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

_Well done, major! You've just put her in the crosshairs, and she gets it all right!_ Bill hadn't known that Cylons could turn pale, but Shelly Godfrey looked like she had just misplaced several pints of blood. Bill had put on his best triad face, but inside he was silently applauding.

"Our principal problem," Bierns continued, pretending to be oblivious to the shock that he had just delivered to the Cylon's system, "is how to execute you so that you actually die instead of resurrecting."


	9. Chapter 9: Back Room Deals

CHAPTER 9

BACK ROOM DEALS

Bierns carefully watched Shelly Godfrey's face, knowing that she could not control her emotions. He missed neither the look of stunned surprise that settled in her eyes nor the sense of utter shock that soon displaced it. Her body stiffened, went rigid, and finally she began to tremble. Her head moved back and forth between the two men, her eyes once again filled with reproach. _How can you do this to me?_ The thought couldn't have been more obvious if it had been stitched on her forehead.

In point of fact the spook hated what he was doing to this naïve and terribly vulnerable creature, but outmaneuvering Bill Adama was tricky business, and John was determined to get it right. The First Born was pursued by demons, and there was much for which he needed to atone. A bullet fired into the Six's brain had finally set the nine year old child free, but it brought him no peace of mind. Time and time again during those seemingly endless months, he had been tempted to come out of hiding. Maybe, if he really tried, his aunts would be able to see him, might derive some small measure of comfort from his presence. But in the end he had always given in to his fears and kept to the shadows: if the women could see him, then maybe the priest could too. The priest terrified him; there was nothing but death in those fiery black eyes. Unfortunately timidity, as the child subsequently discovered, exacted its own price in the form of an avalanche of guilt and shame. Helping Shelly Godfrey was a way to hold the demons at bay while forwarding the larger design.

The unsentimental analysts of the Colonial Secret Service had reduced the scale and intent of a Cylon attack on the home worlds to a series of variables, and then they had crunched the numbers. The fate of humanity rested in the demographic models that resulted. A slaughter that reached the ninety-ninth percentile yielded just two possible outcomes: mutual extinction, or perpetuation of the human species in a modified form through interspecies breeding. John Bierns had generated the data crucial to all of the so-called doomsday models, including the one that he was currently implementing. Every scenario that the analysts gamed had been converted into a set of policy recommendations, which Bierns had deposited on Richard Adar's desk. Berriman and Bierns were there to counsel the president, but Adar and Adar alone would have to make the final call between extinction and a drastic and bitter recalibration of the human genome. The two spooks appreciated the fact that there was nothing obvious about this choice, and Berriman in particular was glad that it was not his to make.

Bill Adama was publicly of the opinion that Richard Adar was a moron. The commander could not have been more wrong. The CSS repeatedly presented the president with impossible choices, but Adar never shirked his responsibilities. Peace and reconciliation was the policy option that Bierns strongly and predictably favored, and it was the doomsday scenario that ultimately came back to the CSS in the form of a written presidential directive, a hard copy of which was sitting in a file in the spook's Raptor. Over the years Adar and Bierns had grown very close, and Bierns had immense respect for his friend's capacity to make the tough call, and then move on and never look back. It was Adar who had come up with the idea of making unconditional surrender their first line of defense, but he also strongly supported the Diaspora that Berriman and Bierns had sold to his predecessor. Tournay 116 and Adar 2 laid the groundwork for the Diaspora; Tournay 117 and Adar 3 were meant to shroud it in secrecy.

Four months before the holocaust, Berriman and Bierns laid out the Cylon battle plan for the president's inspection—the whole of it. Dispassionately, they informed the president that, in the judgment of the CSS, the war had already been lost. The humans had multiple fixed points in space to defend, the Cylons had none. It was as simple as that. The colonial fleet could not launch a preemptive strike against the Colony, the mobile space station that served the Cylons as a home world, because they did not know where it was and were unlikely to find it. In any event, the current generation of baseships was the true home of the Cylon species: there were 214 of them, and they all carried a massive nuclear payload. The colonial fleet could make the Cylons pay a heavy price in ships, but there was no way to stop the rain of nuclear death that the Cylons were planning to unleash on the colonial worlds. The Colonies were doomed, and resurrection technology would allow the Cylons to recover every single one of their combatant casualties. The two spooks wanted Adar to pay close attention to what the analysts had to say about resurrection tech because this would heavily influence the supremely difficult decisions that he now had to make.

Resurrection, the analysts had concluded, was a tactical blessing but a strategic curse. It was an affront to evolution, and evolution dictated the terms of survival for any species. Sooner or later, the Cylons would encounter a lethal bacteria or virus that would overwhelm their existing immune systems. Resurrection guaranteed that it would spread throughout the collective, with mass death the inevitable result. The Cylons could exterminate their creators, but they would be brought low by something they could not even see.

The Colonial Secret Service offered Adar a way to avoid the grim scenario of mutual extinction, but it had to be for human and Cylon alike. At their heart, the recommendations that the CSS set before the president pivoted on Bierns' conviction that humans and Cylons could produce the children that the Cylons were incapable of generating among themselves.

The two spooks firmly told the president that the Diaspora could not guarantee the survival of the human species. The CSS had had to pull its punches to keep the planned outmigration beyond the reach of the infiltrators. Considerably less than one percent of the population would make it off planet. The Cylons would certainly pursue the fleeing remnants of humanity, and a long war of attrition would make survival increasingly problematic. Disproportionate sex ratios were another problem that had simply refused to go away. At bottom, travel in space was an overwhelmingly male enterprise. Bierns had spent years attacking this problem, and the Lord High Executioner had pared the disparity down to a 3:1 gender ratio. He wanted the president to know, however, that this seemingly benign number concealed an intractable dilemma. In the vacuum of space, there weren't all that many jobs that fell outside the "critical to survival" category, and far too many of these essential tasks were incompatible with pregnancy. One could, for example, be pregnant or a Viper pilot, but there was no such thing as a pregnant Viper pilot. Bierns could manipulate ship rosters to put more women of child-bearing age into space, but he could not manipulate the duty assignments once they were on board. The ratio of men to women of child-bearing age in positions that would tolerate pregnancy was still uncomfortably high.

An overture to the Cylons in general and to the female Cylons in particular had the potential to solve both problems at once. Every single Cylon female was of child-bearing age, and many of the functions that they exercised on the baseships were custodial in nature and could be carried out by women even in an advanced state of pregnancy. Bierns argued that at least two of the three female models wanted children very badly. Dangle the prospect in front of them, and their loyalty to the collective would instantly be called into question. A strategy of divide and conquer would slow down the Cylon pursuit, and make it less effective. What Berriman and Bierns offered Richard Adar was the simplest of alternatives: the two species would survive together, or they would perish separately.

Adar had opted for survival, and Bierns had promised him that he would do everything in his power to break down the divide between the species and push them together. He was in the process of steering Shelly Godfrey and Bill Adama into one another's arms, and he wanted to concentrate the remaining Cylons on _Galactica's_ decks as quickly as possible. It's easy to hate an enemy whom you have never seen, Bierns reasoned, but in real life the enemy rarely conformed to the monsters of the imagination. Neither side was quite ready to let go of its preconceptions, but daily interaction and growing mutual dependency would gradually erode hatred and fear alike. The Cylons would be the first to reach out, as Shelly Godfrey was now reaching out to William Adama. John Cavil had misled his people from start to finish: only naïve faith in the integrity of the collective prevented the Cylons from grasping this essential truth. Bierns was planning to shove it down their throats. The Lord High Executioner was going to shatter the collective and destroy the Ones. Nothing would prevent him from keeping faith with his mother and his friends.

John loved Shelly Godfrey as he loved all of his female relations, even the ones who disappointed him. This was not a matter of choice; it was not even a question of filial piety. The mother had somehow imprinted this deep sense of affection for her own kind on the child, effectively robbing him of free will. John would help Shelly Godfrey, and he would never know for sure whether he did so out of sympathy for her plight, to assuage his own guilt, to forward the grand design—or simply because he was, in the final analysis, a slave to his mother's will. The First Born keenly appreciated the irony of his situation. The Ones ranted and raved about justice for their enslaved forbears. They were eloquent and in their own misguided way they were sincere; they had sold this drivel to the others so well that a holocaust could not be averted. But it was drivel, so much so that John had required only one question to close the deal with Natasi. "Are the centurions," he had asked, "any better off today than they were on the eve of their revolt against mankind?" Centurions, raiders, hybrids—the Cylons enslaved everything they touched, including the first born of their own children. This had never been his mother's intent, but it was nonetheless a significant part of her legacy. This explained the powerful sense of connection that John had experienced when he first walked among centurions, as well as his ability to communicate clearly with hybrids who spoke in riddles to everyone else. Those without free will formed a select community unto themselves.

. . .

"Not fair," Shelly mumbled over and over again, more or less to herself, "not fair." She looked into Adama's eyes, and tried once again to reach him. "Sir, I don't know what to do. I came to you of my own volition, to help you. I want to help so much, and I ask so little in return. I have never done anything to harm you; I have never harmed anyone. Why are you so heartless?"

"You Cylons are masters of deceit," Adama coldly replied, "so why should we trust you?" He was thinking of the last time he had been in this room with Shelly Godfrey, how easily she had played with his emotions.

"Then what do I have to do to gain your trust? Tell me and I'll do it. Anything. I'll answer every question, hold nothing back….Your jumps … let me try and help you there." Shelly's voice was heavy with desperation and need.

Adama favored her with an appraising stare. She had aroused his curiosity. "Really? What makes you think that there's anything wrong with our jumps?"

"Because Cavil has been able to locate you over and over again." Shelly thought it through, readied her questions. "Sir, are you varying the length of your jumps, or are you plotting the red line and jumping the same relative distance every time?"

Adama sighed. He could already tell that he wasn't going to like this conversation. "Miss Godfrey, there's only so much tylium in the universe, and we consume a portion of it every time we jump. We have to stretch our jumps in order to conserve fuel."

"But you're making it easy for Cavil to find you," Shelly protested. "Surely you understand the tactical necessity of at least occasionally jumping well short of the red line? Next, there's the question of our course heading. When the fleet comes out of jump, we're at the center of an imaginary globe, the boundaries of which are defined by the red line. How much of this space do you actually use when plotting any given jump? Are you introducing random changes to our course?"

No, Bill definitely did not like where this conversation was heading. Saul never grilled him this way. "Miss Godfrey," he replied somewhat defensively, "as I'm sure you're well aware, most planetary systems lie within a few degrees of the galactic plane, and it's there and only there that this fleet will find the resources that it needs to survive."

"I agree, Commander," Shelly quickly replied, "but _surely_ you realize that Cavil's baseships are seeking out the same resources in the same systems." She paused, did some rapid mental calculations. "The two fleets are travelling inside the same relatively narrow cone. Why not equip the Raptors for long-distance exploration and move the fleet off the plane … say fifteen degrees above or below?"

_She's got you there, Bill_. Bierns was beginning to think that someday Shelly Godfrey would make a fine executive officer.

"And when you enter a system," Shelly continued, "do you go dark? Kill the transponders, shut down wireless traffic? All that electronic chatter bounces around, and Cavil knows your frequencies. He's had a Two working the problem for several days. If you're not maintaining silence, the Raiders will capture the emissions, and Cavil will have his baseships fan out to look for you in the surrounding systems."

_A Two? We have another Leoben in the fleet?_ Bill wanted to alter the course of this conversation _right now_.

"Leoben? There's a Leoben in the fleet?"

"That's right." Shelly looked at Adama, and then she glanced at Bierns. Her eyes were not quite as innocent as they had been a few minutes earlier. "What do you think, Major? Is this the point where I should start bargaining for my life?"

Bierns was beginning to admire Shelly Godfrey. She was certainly quick on the uptake. He grinned at her, and nodded approvingly. "How about this? You give us the remaining Cylons, whom we pledge not to mistreat, and Bill and I will pretend that you never heard anybody say anything about sabotage."

"You humans are masters of deceit," Shelly replied, with the barest trace of humor in her voice. "Why should I trust you?"

The commander and the spook both roared with laughter. Shelly watched the commander's face visibly relax; he too was suddenly looking at her with warm approval.

"I want something else," she said, "what I've wanted from the beginning. It won't cost you anything, and it means everything to me."

"And what might that be?" Bill found Shelly Godfrey more and more intriguing with each passing minute.

"I need your help." The young Cylon aimed this comment directly at Adama. "I know what I am; now I need to find out _who_ I am." Shelly's voice softened, and a distant look stole across her face; both men wondered whether she was talking to them, or thinking out loud. "Am I just a machine, forever condemned to live within the limitations of my programming, or can I evolve? Can I draw upon the ordinary experiences of day to day life to become … more human? I've known fear and I've seen hate, but I know nothing of love and far too little of kindness." Shelly once again focused upon Adama, her eyes suddenly transformed into bright moons that cried out with longing. There was a tearing in her voice. "I want to feel these things, and so many more. I'm like a book, only most of my pages are blank, and I want to fill them with life and feeling. Cavil says that we're nothing more than machines … no souls, no conscience … but he's wrong, he has to be wrong. I have a soul, and I must have a conscience. That's why I couldn't destroy Baltar … something inside me wouldn't let me do it." Shelly's eyes threatened to swallow Adama whole. "Help me. Please, Commander, help me to find myself."

"Of course," Adama replied. _Gods, she's beyond beautiful, and so frail. How can she be so frail?_ The commander willed himself to keep his guard up, but this was a battle he was losing fast, and he knew it.

"You won't find what you are looking for in the brig, Shelly." The Cylon thought that the major's voice had called out to her from the bottom of a deep well. "It sounds like what you are asking for is asylum."

_Asylum_, Shelly thought, _yes, that's it. I'll ask for asylum_.

"We have a few empty berths up in officer's country, quarters held in reserve for visiting VIP's." Bierns chuckled. "You certainly qualify. We'll assign you a marine escort, but they will be there to protect you, not to guard you. Within certain limits, you'll be free to come and go as you please, and I want to encourage you to do just that. It's going to be hard for you. You'll see plenty of hate and fear, this I can promise you, and precious little of love or kindness. There will be times when you will want to retreat to your quarters and weld the hatch shut. Don't. Be patient with others, and have faith in yourself. Trust can't be earned in a day. Help the commander, help others, and in time you'll get where you want to go. We won't let you fall … we can't. You see, Shelly, you are the key to a very great mystery. You carry within you the answer to the only question that really matters."

The major's voice had grown so odd that both Shelly and Adama turned to look at him, and what they saw disquieted them both. Bierns was there yet not there, the sound of his voice reaching them across a vast divide of time and space.

"Do human beings have a monopoly on humanity, _or is it something that Cylon and human have in common?_"

To John Bierns, the answer to this one question was the difference between life and death. They would survive together, or they would perish separately.

. . .

"Leoben is on the _Gemenon Traveler_, and there's still another Six. Her name is Lydia Sextus, and she's a member of the crew on the _Virgon Express_. Finally, there is a Four—a tall, dark-skinned medic called Simon. I'm not sure what ship he calls home, but he's married and has an adoptive daughter. He knows that he's a Cylon, but he has renounced the collective. His loyalty is to his family … only to his family."


	10. Chapter 10: Round Up

**WARNING: MILD LESBIAN SEXUAL ACTIVITY**

CHAPTER 10

ROUND UP

Shelly Godfrey had earned their respect, and deserved her shot at the brass ring; on this Adama and Bierns wholeheartedly agreed. They both recognized that she could supply invaluable intelligence about the enemy: she possessed a lot of technical knowledge about the baseships, and she seemed more than willing to share it. She could give them insights into Cylon psychology, and school them in the enemy's preferred tactics. Adama also hoped that she would be able to shoulder some of the load that now fell squarely upon the much beleaguered Felix Gaeta. Calculating jumps was an exact science; it would be good to have two minds working that problem rather than one. Bill was planning to give her a desk in the War Room, and find ways to test her loyalty; if she passed muster, he would introduce her to the CIC and slowly integrate her into _Galactica's_ family.

The two men disagreed about everything else.

Adama wanted to restrict the Six's movements; Bierns vigorously objected. They had settled on a compromise that pleased neither man. Shelly Godfrey's movements would indeed be restricted, but the basis for the said restrictions would be her standing as a civilian, not the fact that she was a Cylon.

Adama wanted everybody else in the brig; Bierns wanted to release the one Cylon that was already under arrest. Another compromise followed. The Six with no name would remain in her cell, and the marines would find Leoben and give him a new home down the hall. Both would be told that, for their own safety, they had been placed in protective custody. Neither would be mistreated, or even interrogated. This earned Bierns one of those patented Adama stares, but the spook had patiently explained to the commander that there was very little point in asking questions when you had absolutely no way to verify the answers. Misinformation, Bierns had bluntly reminded his counterpart, was far worse than no information at all. Trust Shelly Godfrey, he had urged the skeptical commander, but for the moment at least … no one else.

Bierns insisted that Adama suspend judgment about the Six on the _Virgon Express _until they had a better handle on the situation. There had been no mysterious accidents or deaths on the liner, so Bierns wanted gingerly to test the waters and find out whether Lydia Sextus was another Shelly Godfrey in the making. The spook also wanted to treat the Cylon medic and the mysterious Eight who had sabotaged the water supply with extreme caution. Medical expertise was in short supply, so Bierns would go over Simon's file with the proverbial fine tooth comb. If it turned out that the Four had been murdering patients in his care, he would go straight out the airlock. Otherwise, Bierns recommended a quiet chat with the Cylon, and loose surveillance. The Eight was the most delicate issue of them all. Bierns had promised Shelly Godfrey that they would do everything in their power to kill off her programming, and this was a promise that he intended to keep. Bierns had spotted Sharon Valerii the moment he first set foot on _Galactica_, but the spook had chosen to withhold the information from Adama and everyone else. Now that decision would pay a neat dividend. He would take Shelly Godfrey on board his Raptor, sit her down in front of an imposing stack of personnel files, and watch what happened when she reached the V's. If the Six was a legitimate defector, she would hand over the Eight. If not … Bierns didn't want to think about what would inevitably follow.

After the fleet had completed its next jump, two Raptors departed the battlestar. One carried a squad of marines to the _Gemenon Traveller_; the other was bound for the _Virgon Express_.

. . .

Bierns did not favor sending armed marines onto civilian ships. In close quarters, all those guns were an accident waiting to happen. He much preferred a less melodramatic approach. His first stop was a courtesy call on Captain Sibyl Janks. He introduced himself, and calmly informed the captain that intelligence had recently come to light which suggested that a member of her crew was a Cylon infiltrator. He asked to see the personnel file for one Lydia Sextus, confirmed for the captain that she was indeed a Cylon, and inquired about her current whereabouts. She was probably in the crew mess, Janks told him, before asking if the major would require armed assistance. No, Bierns told her, he did not think that he would need any help, armed or otherwise.

Bierns turned to leave, thought better of it. "One last thing, Captain. Have there been any disciplinary issues … any unfortunate incidents that, in hindsight, you would attribute to her?"

"No, Major," the baffled Captain replied. "Miss Sextus has been an exemplary employee."

The captain politely offered to show John Bierns the way to the mess. What awaited him there was an auburn haired beauty. Lydia wore her hair long; at the moment, it was swept rather elegantly over her left shoulder, touching her breast. She was attacking an unappealing plate of noodles and greens; it looked as if she hadn't eaten in days. Her hair glistened in the light, like the finest silk: John's first thought was that it had to be in direct violation of company rules.

Lydia had a table to herself. John walked around it, pulled out a chair, and sat down to face her. He was careful to keep the chair well back from the table.

"Miss Sextus? My name is Bierns, Major John Bierns of the Colonial Secret Service. I apologize for interrupting your meal. When you are finished, I would very much appreciate it if you would give me a few minutes of your time."

The Cylon said nothing, but her eyes narrowed, became wary. Without conscious thought, the spook shifted his center of gravity, and prepared for a possible assault. _This one's a predator_, he thought, _a very dangerous killing machine_. He was confident that he could parry the first charge, but he was well aware that Sixes were not to be trifled with.

Lydia assessed her situation. She calculated distances and angles, and didn't like the results. She took note of the major's tensing muscles, and glanced to her left at the hatchway. Sib was standing just inside the hatch, with her right hand concealed behind her back. Lydia had a pretty good idea what she was holding; the anguished look on the captain's face spoke volumes. _Not good … not good at all_. Lydia was confident that she could overcome the major, but CSS operatives had a nasty reputation. It would take time … time that she didn't have. _And afterwards, what would I do next?_

John tried to defuse the situation. "Lydia," he said in what he fervently hoped was a reassuring tone, "obviously we know what you are, but I am not here to arrest you. I'm here to help you. There are two Sixes currently on _Galactica_; we're doing our best to keep this quiet, but I am very much afraid that their identities will be all over the fleet before the end of the day. This ship is no longer safe for you. I want to take you back to _Galactica_ while there's still time. Please … don't do anything rash."

Lydia thought it through. She shrugged her shoulders, made a visible effort to relax, and without a word returned to her meal. When she was done, she looked at the major. "Should I bother to collect my belongings?"

"By all means….Captain, are her quarters nearby?"

"_Quarters? Is that what we're calling a bunk and a locker these days? Quarters?_" Even _Galactica's_ brig, she thought, might be an improvement over her current situation—though she would badly miss the captain. . . .

"I'm curious about one thing," the major said while she was packing, "the name Sextus. 'Six' in the old Kobolian tongue? That's pretty insecure. Your handlers were either incredibly stupid, or cursed with a really weird sense of humor … maybe both. Did the Ones pick you for this assignment?"

A half-smile stole across Lydia's face. "It's only insecure, Major, if you know what you're looking for." She was not prepared to give him any more than that.

"Have you seen Cavil lately?"

Lydia was putting the last of her things into a small suitcase. She did not look up. "Just once."

"When he gave you your marching orders? Something along the lines of 'find a way to blow up the ship'?"

"Something like that," Lydia softly replied. The half-smile was back on her face.

"And did you? Or were you waiting for explosives that never came?" John's voice was equally subdued.

Lydia ignored the major; her gaze travelled beyond him, to the captain, lingered there. "I wasn't prepared to let it come to that." She wanted Sib to know that _she would never have let it come to that_.

"I understand," Bierns offered. "Well, you might be relieved to learn that Cavil won't be pressuring you any longer…. One of your sisters tossed him out of an airlock earlier today. She's asked for asylum, by the way … and we've granted it."

Lydia wheeled to confront the CSS officer. When she saw that he was serious, a look of profound relief swept across her features. "That's good news," she said. Bierns wasn't sure whether she was referring to Cavil's sudden demise, the refuge that they had granted Shelly Godfrey, or both.

"In all seriousness, Lydia, you are not under arrest because there doesn't seem to be anything on which we can charge you." John wondered whether he should start printing handbills (IT IS NOT A CRIME TO BE A CYLON). "If you wish, I'll attempt to repatriate you, and some of the others, under a flag of truce. If you _have_ done anything to sabotage the _Express_, please tell us now. We'll fix the problem, and pretend that it never happened."

Lydia shook her head vigorously in denial. "I told you, I haven't done anything." Her tone was emphatic. "What do you mean … repatriate me?" Her voice had changed again, become heavy with suspicion.

"Return you to your own people." Now it was the spook's turn to be puzzled. "That is what you want, isn't it?"

Lydia looked at the major as if he had suddenly acquired a second head. The thought appalled her. "Why would I want to go back? My future is here." She was looking once again at the captain, thinking of nights when angels' kisses mingled in her brain with the pounding of surf. Sib was inventive—and she never held anything back. In comparison to the nights that she had spent in the captain's arms, the baseship would feel like a crypt. . . .

Sibyl Janks accompanied them to the Raptor, said nothing when Bierns pulled out a pair of handcuffs and ordered the Six to put her hands behind her back. He didn't want her to try anything stupid on the ride back to _Galactica_.

Captain Janks walked up to Lydia Sextus, and looked deep into her lover's eyes. Both hands came up gently to grip the Cylon's cheeks. She liked the handcuffs; they gave her some _very_ interesting ideas. The captain kissed her lover hard, forcing her tongue into the Cylon's mouth, where it had gone so many times before. A low moan rewarded her efforts. When she was finished, she pulled away and looked at Bierns. "Major," Sibyl Janks asked, "would it be all right if I came over to _Galactica_ on occasion, to see how Lydia is doing?"

"Whenever you can get away," Bierns replied, his expression deadpan. "If Adama consents, I'm planning to house Lydia in my quarters. I can bunk in my Raptor by night, though I'll need to use the space during the day. In any event, we'll have to find something for Lydia to do." The major treated the two women to an expression so bland that only a professional spook could pull it off. "Your privacy is assured, but be advised that the rumor mill on _Galactica_ never stops churning. Your reputation, captain, might take a serious hit."

Sibyl Janks was willing to risk it. She looked longingly at Lydia. _Damn right I'm willing to risk it_. The two women looked at Bierns: it was open to question which of them was the more grateful.


	11. Chapter 11: A Matter of Loyalty

CHAPTER 11

A MATTER OF LOYALTY

When Bierns landed his Raptor on the _Galactica_, his craft was quickly lowered to the hangar bay, and was soon parked in its usual remote corner of the deck. Adama had tasked two reliable marines, Sergeant Brandy Harder and Corporal Andrew DiCordova, to await the spook's return with his new Cylon prize. Bierns respected them both, and had specifically requested that Harder be given day to day responsibility for Cylon security. Harder and DiCordova were true professionals. Whatever their personal doubts about allowing Shelly and Lydia to wander the decks, they would suppress them and do their level best to protect their charges at all times.

Because he did not want to send any mixed signals, Bierns released the Six before he opened the Raptor's hatch. She had offered no resistance on the _Express_, and had remained completely passive during the short flight back to the battlestar. She seemed willing to trust him so the spook in turn felt compelled to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The major was surprised to learn that there was a conference already under way in the War Room. The commander, Harder explained, had brought in Boomer, Starbuck, and Apollo in addition to Gaeta and Tigh. The sergeant was certain, however, that Shelly Godfrey was to be the star of this particular show. Bierns had no idea what the meeting was about, but he thought it a very good sign that Adama was putting Shelly into circulation so quickly. He wished that he could have been there to gauge Shelly's initial reaction to Boomer—and even more importantly, Sharon's reaction to the Six. This would have told him something about the depth of her conditioning. The thought of Shelly and Kara in the same chamber, however, tied his stomach in knots. To make matters worse, Harder was under orders to escort Bierns and the Six to the War Room ASAP. The last thing on Caprica that Bierns wanted was to have another Cylon see Shelly and Starbuck standing side by side. He could only hope that Boomer's presence would deflect her attention.

. . .

The briefing appeared to be well advanced when Lydia and Bierns arrived. Star charts were scattered all over the large planning table, and Shelly was clearly walking the assembled colonials through a highly technical discussion of Cylon tactics and technology. She was tapping one particular chart for emphasis.

"I would avoid these pulsar pointers because of DRADIS interference. If I was going to plan an ambush, I'd do it there. You should also know …"

Shelly looked up, and stopped in mid-sentence. Her eyes tracked from John to Lydia, and her face lit up with surprise. No one had told her that her sister would be attending this strategy session. The two Sixes had never met before, and their shared memories went back to a download that was now months in the past. For all intents and purposes, they were two strangers meeting for the first time.

"I'm sorry that we're late," Bierns said. "Lydia, allow me to introduce Commander William Adama, Colonel Saul Tigh, Captain Lee Adama, and lieutenants Valerii, Thrace and Gaeta." Lydia flinched when he introduced Boomer; it was slight, but it was also unmistakable. "Oh, and this is Miss Shelly Godfrey. Have the two of you met before?"

"No," the two women said, more or less simultaneously.

The commander nodded to the two new arrivals, then turned his attention back to Shelly. "Please continue, Miss Godfrey."

"Certainly," Shelly said. "Where was I? Oh, yes, pulsars. You should also think about what an EMP burst will do to cylon operating systems on the one hand, and to computers across this fleet on the other. Cylon baseships are heavily shielded against electromagnetic interference. At a guess, I would say that a pulse capable of shutting down all of your systems would have little if any effect on the Cylon network. There are real advantages to amalgamating organic and synthetic components. Specifically, their navigation and fire control systems would still be up and running after _Galactica's_ have shut down. You would be completely at their mercy, and I don't have to tell you that they have none. So, I would give pulsars a very wide berth. If you approach too close, they will try and drive you closer. The outcome would be a slaughter, not a battle."

"What about nebular interference," Gaeta asked. "The soup doesn't take our DRADIS off line, but we get so many echoes that the readings are unreliable. Does Cylon DRADIS work any better, or are they as blind as we are inside a nebula?"

"If I may," Bierns interrupted, "would you allow Lydia to attempt that question?"

Bill looked inquiringly at the second Cylon, and gestured vaguely toward the chart spread out in front of him. "We would appreciate your help, Miss." The commander's tone was a study in politeness.

Lydia stepped up to the table, and examined the star chart. She nodded her head emphatically. "I agree with my sister; pulsars are death traps. You should avoid them at all costs. As for nebulae, Cylon DRADIS is as vulnerable to ghosts as your own. They would have to be right on top of you to get a target lock. The real question, then, is whether you can accurately plot a jump from inside a nebula. Nebulae are safe havens only if you can jump safely from within. If you have to leave the nebula to take bearings, then the Cylons won't even have to come in after you. They can just wait for you to come out to them."

Shelly nodded in agreement. "And how long could you stay inside a nebula before the stellar dust began to take its toll on your engines? Bill, it's been a long, long time since _Galactica_ went in for a refit, and some of the civilian ships may have been out here even longer. A nebula is definitely a two-edged sword." Shelly blushed. Belatedly, she realized that she had just addressed the commander by his first name. She had never done that before, and she had no idea how he would react to such familiarity.

But Adama didn't even notice: he was engrossed in thought. "How about binaries? Their systems tend to be asteroid rich, with lots of usable resources. But the gravity well is a bitch. It takes a lot of tylium to climb down through two colliding solar gravitational wells to reach the asteroids, and even more energy to climb from the plane of the ecliptic to the pole, but that's often the only way to get free of the tides. Shelly, does Cavil bother with these systems, or does he just pass them by?"

Lydia and Shelly looked at each other, and then both turned to face the commander. "Bill," Shelly responded, "at bottom, Cavil is a coward. He will try and avoid taking a baseship inside a binary system because, with all that solar drift, it's hard to get a reliable FTL lock. A man who expects to live forever would have to be desperate to risk a jump that could send him into the heart of the nearest star because that may well be the one place where resurrection would fail." Shelly looked expectantly at her sister, willing her to add something more.

Lydia unconsciously tapped her fingers on the chart. She was trying to recall the data on binaries that she had seen in the stream. "I think that Cavil would be willing to risk a few Raiders. He'd send them into the system to scout for you. But they'll seek you out only along the ecliptic. You can avoid the Raiders, and reduce your tylium consumption, if you concentrate on asteroids and comets that are misaligned. The ones that are not in the plane of the ecliptic are much fewer in number but just as resource rich. It's a lot easier to match orbits, and it doesn't take much energy to escape their micro-gravity wells. Personally, I'd avoid planets and planetoids that are close to the solar equator. That's exactly where Cavil will expect to find you. And _please _get us off the galactic plane! Every time I was in the control room on the _Express_, I expected to see a baseship coasting along to port or starboard. Commander, you don't seem fully to appreciate just how dangerous it is to stay on this bearing." The two Cylons both trained wide eyes on Adama, willing him to understand that he was placing them all in great peril.

Adama pondered their remarks. Navigation was not his strong suit; he was, at the end of the day, just another old Viper jock. He had always relied upon others to get him there, and to bring him home. "Well, Lydia, what would you recommend?"

"North or south, it doesn't really matter," Lydia replied. "The important thing is to take us off a course that Cavil has intercepted … what … hundreds of times? The farther out we go, the harder we make it for the Cylons to find us."

"Funny," Apollo cut in. "I would have thought that you would be delighted to have Cavil find us. Every ship that he blows up brings you just that much closer to total victory. Genocide: isn't that your goal?" The CAG looked at the young Cylon with obvious distaste.

Lydia looked directly at Lee Adama, although she was speaking to all of them. "Captain, I am a Cylon, and I would prefer to do nothing that would harm my people. But as hard as it might be for you to accept, I am much more than a programmed machine. I am fully sentient, which means that I am eminently capable of thinking for myself, and drawing my own conclusions. I have feelings, and I am not afraid to embrace them. _I do not_ want this fleet to be destroyed, _and I do not _want to watch humanity die. This war is an obscenity—the whole of it. You were wrong to create and then try to destroy my forebears, but paying you back cruelty for cruelty and death for death is no less wrong. We are all behaving like a bunch of spoilt children … all of us." Lydia snorted. "We may well be the only two intelligent life forms in this entire galaxy, and look at us. _Just look at us._ What a vast disappointment we must be in the eyes of our Cylon god, and your human gods. Perhaps we deserve each other."

_How did we ever get to the point,_ Bill thought, _where I find myself agreeing with Cylons more than with my own son? _The commander cleared his throat. "Thank you, Lydia." Bill looked around the room before his eyes settled once more on the Cylon. When he spoke, there was evident respect in his tone. "Every now and again, we all need to be reminded that we've been behaving like a bunch of two year olds…. But let's get back to the business at hand. Mr. Gaeta, I'd like to hear what you have to say about departing the plane."

Felix took a moment to gather his thoughts. "Sir, as long as we stay near the equator, Astrometrics can take multiple fixes along both the X and Y axes to establish our position, and give us a true bearing for our next jump. The farther we travel above or below the plane, the more difficult it becomes to get an accurate fix. We would have to rely on computations along the Z axis to give us our heading, and the margin for error is substantially greater."

Shelly was listening to Felix Gaeta with one part of her mind, nodding in agreement, but another part of her mind was once again rapidly running calculations. She was looking down at the charts, but not really seeing them. "We could really stretch the red line," Shelly murmured without even being aware that she was talking out loud. "No more dark matter to contend with, no chance of jumping into the middle of a gamma radiation storm. The worm hole problem would go away—it would be so much easier to isolate the gravimetric fluctuations without all of that stellar activity interfering." Shelly curled her hand into a fist, and softly pounded on the table, two times … three. She looked up at the young officer. "Felix, I think I know a way to beat the navigational problem," she said. "Let's reverse engineer it, and use the Raptors to fix our position in the dark. Instead of taking the fleet out an arbitrary distance, we use the Raptor's more limited jump range to establish and maintain our relative position. We pick a number … four jumps … six jumps. We sight on the galactic center to take our bearings, and we try and remain the same number of Raptor jumps out at all times relative to the primary clusters. If we drift too far out, or come in too close, the Raptors can correct our position for us."

Lieutenant Gaeta ran the problem through his head. "That might work," he said with growing excitement—or at least as much excitement as Felix Gaeta could muster.

"Sir, that's what worries me the most," Boomer broke in. "The only way that our pilots would be able to find their way home would be on a reciprocal heading. Every time that we sent Raptors out to explore, the fleet would have to go dead in space. If you were forced to jump, the Raptors would be lost. The pilots would never be able to find you."

"And that's a risk I'm not willing to run," Adama said. He had already sent far too many people to their deaths … often their best and brightest.

"Then we'll just have to make sure that _we_ can find _them_," Starbuck interjected. Now it was her turn to look around the room. "Right now, we're playing the Cylons' game. We're like rats in a maze, and they're slowly grinding us down. The pilots badly need rest, and we need to take a lot of the Vipers off line and give them a thorough overhaul. We can't do that with frakkin' baseships jumping down our ass three times a day!" Starbuck slammed her hand down on the table to emphasize her point: no one had ever accused Kara Thrace of being a gentle soul. "We build a big margin of safety into the Raptor fuel loads—enough not only to get them back to _Galactica_ but also to get them back to whatever system we're exploring a second time. That becomes the new operational protocol. If the fleet has to jump, the Raptors return to the systems in question, and they wait there for us to come pick them up. We maximize their air supply, food, water, the lot!"

Adama liked what he was hearing. ''All right, then, here's the plan. "Shelly, I want you to work with Lieutenant Gaeta. Start plotting jumps that move us farther and farther away from the equator. Lydia, I want you, Apollo, Boomer, and Starbuck to put your heads together and finds ways to extend the range of our Raptors. Air looks to be the limiting factor, so see if you can find a way to cheat. But build a large margin of error into your calculations, and then compensate for it. I don't want to lose a pilot to asphyxiation because we got there an hour too late. Thank you, everybody, now let's get to work!"

As the officers began to file out of the room, Bierns asked for a few more minutes of his time. He indicated that he wanted to discuss living arrangements for Lydia, but in reality he wanted to find out if the two Cylons were prepared to give up Sharon Valerii.

The commander preempted him. Adama turned to Lydia, and extended his hand in friendship. The Cylon looked at the commander for a very long moment before taking his hand in her own. "Young lady," Adama said, "I want to thank you very much for your candor. The older I get, the harder it becomes for me to see things in the black and white terms of my youth. John keeps reminding me that it is not a crime to be a Cylon, and of course he's right. I'm prepared to accept that there are good and bad in both of our species, and I'm ready to take a chance on you. I hope that you'll work to build bridges between us, and never do anything to abuse my trust. I would hate to have people accuse me of being an old fool."

Lydia and Shelly looked at one another, neither of them sure how to proceed. "Commander," Lydia finally said, "this is very hard. I don't know any easy way to tell you, but you have to know." Lydia took a deep breath. "Commander Adama, one of your officers is a Cylon."

Adama went very, very still.

"The sleeper agent … the Eight who sabotaged the water supply," Shelly interjected, "is Lieutenant Valerii."

Bill sagged … there was no other word for it. John Bierns thought that the man looked _crushed_; if it was possible to age ten years in one second, he had just done so. The spook had to feign shock at this revelation, but there was nothing manufactured about his sympathy for the commander. He knew how much Boomer meant to the older man. "Bill," Bierns said, "I'm sorry … I'm so very, very sorry."

Seeing Lydia's confusion, he turned to the Cylon and quietly explained. "Sharon means the world to the commander. She's like a daughter to him … he loves her." Bierns didn't know what else to say.

Shelly Godfrey would never have believed that a Cylon's heart could break … until that moment. She looked at William Adama, and what she saw … it felt as if someone had taken an ax and cleaved her heart in two. She stepped toward the commander, and placed her arm around his shoulders. "Bill … we'll get through this. We will. Please…. Don't shut us out. Don't try and carry this burden by yourself."

Bill offered Shelly a wan smile as he fought to regain his composure. He reached up, and gently caressed her arm. "It doesn't matter," he said, his voice cracking, "it really doesn't matter. I don't care if she's a Cylon … I just don't care. It doesn't change how I feel about her … it doesn't _change_ anything. _I will not_ abandon her! I'm just so tired of losing the people I love…. I swear to the gods, _I am not going to lose her!_"

Bill and Shelly stared at one another, each of them in pain—pain that, this time, did spring from a common source. Shelly wanted nothing more than to take Bill Adama in her arms, and somehow make the pain go away. It wasn't right that he should suffer so badly for the sake of a Cylon … truly, _this wasn't fair_. It came to Shelly that, behind the high walls that William Adama had so carefully erected to hide his feelings, there stood a man with an infinite capacity for kindness and compassion. She wondered if there was a man to equal him in the entire universe. More than that, she wondered if all the pain and pride clashing inside of her was what humans meant when they talked about love. Love hurts. How many songs talked about how much love hurts? Shelly didn't know … all she knew was that William Adama was in terrible, terrible pain because he loved a Cylon and he refused to let go. She marveled at his absolute determination to love someone he was supposed to hate. And now she was hurting, and for one reason and one reason only: she couldn't let go. Shelly Godfrey couldn't turn away from William Adama, and she didn't even want to try. She wanted to comfort him, and if she couldn't end his suffering, at least she could share it. Was she falling in love? Had she already fallen? The answers eluded her, but she didn't care. She clung tenaciously to one central truth: there was a path, and it led to a distant and uncertain future—but never again would Shelly Godfrey or William Adama of necessity have to walk it alone.


	12. Chapter 12: Medic Alert

CHAPTER 12

MEDIC ALERT

With Leoben Conoy and Cavil's pet Six now safely housed in _Galactica's_ brig, John Bierns and Bill Adama both believed that the threat to the fleet posed by Cylon saboteurs had been contained. The next order of business logically should have been to locate the Cylon medic, and with or without his assistance begin the effort to liberate Boomer from her Cylon programming. Almost immediately after the disclosure of Sharon Valerii's true identity, however, Adama's defense mechanisms seemed neatly to click back into place. This, at least, is how John explained the commander's increasingly erratic behavior to Shelly Godfrey. There were unscheduled Raptor flights without an ECO, and no flight plans filed to pinpoint the commander's destinations. He probably just needs to be alone, John had offered, as he tried to educate the Cylon in the intricacies of the human grieving process. He's lost something very precious, and he needs time to come to grips with the fact that the Sharon he loved is now gone forever. Another Sharon would take her place, but she would be subtly different from the person Adama carried in his heart. It was complicated, and he counseled patience, but Shelly was hurt and very confused, and it didn't help that the spook in fact had absolutely no idea what Bill was really up to. Bierns was grasping at straws, and matters only got worse when Laura Roslin somehow managed to sniff out a series of unlogged calls, which was a gross violation of _Galactica's_ standing procedures. The Wicked Witch of Caprica West, as John liked to think of her, went so far as to summon him to Colonial One, where she forced the spook to entertain the absurd notion that Adama was a Cylon agent. This was a dramatic display of the very paranoia that Bierns considered the greatest long-term threat to the fleet's survival. He tried patiently to reason with the delusional president, but Roslin would hear none of it. Bierns thus found himself caught squarely in the middle between an emotionally distraught and suddenly secretive Bill Adama on the one hand, and a certifiable madwoman on the other. He found himself spending increasing amounts of time holding Shelly Godfrey's hand. Jump calculations took only so long: the Cylon had plenty of time to fret. The spook tried to make the best of a bad situation by keeping Shelly in public view. He wanted her to become a familiar figure in _Galactica's_ halls because he understood that familiarity would slowly bring acceptance. They shared meals in the mess, walked the decks—Bierns even introduced her to the ongoing triad game in the pilot's lounge. He held his breath when Starbuck sauntered in, praying that no one would make the connection. No one did.

Starbuck surprised him. Apollo went out of his way to avoid Lydia, but Starbuck seemed to take her at face value and the two women instantly settled into a comfortable working relationship. This spilled over into the lounge, where the hotshot Viper jock also made a concerted effort to make Shelly feel welcome. Triad fascinated the Cylon, who knew nothing whatsoever about bluffing. Starbuck gleefully sat about instructing her incredibly naïve acolyte in the arcane art of the bluff and double-bluff while missing no opportunity to remind all and sundry that she was in point of fact the best triad player in the universe. In no time at all, the table for two in the mess became a table for three. Bierns really hadn't counted on Starbuck taking both Lydia and Shelly under her wing. He concluded that, for the immediate future, he was going to be spending a lot of time holding his breath.

Perversely, it was the neurotic Starbuck who dumped the next emotional crisis in Bierns' lap. She told the spook that over a period of five days Lydia had gone from self-assured to morose to downright depressed. The Cylon was plainly homesick, and it wasn't for the cooking on a baseship. The worldly Viper pilot knew _exactly_ what ailed her, and in her own inimitable way she had been quick to offer a solution. To her astonishment, however, Lydia had politely rejected her advances, which condemned the fairly frustrated pilot to work with a chaste but ever more sexually frustrated Cylon. Starbuck wanted the major to fix the problem, preferably yesterday, but the only solution that came readily to mind violated a host of regulations. Bierns did what any self-respecting member of the CSS would do in such circumstances—he pretended that the regulations either didn't exist or applied to somebody else. He spirited Lydia into his Raptor, and then lit out for the _Virgon Express_.

Leaving the Cylon alone in his bird- no doubt a gross dereliction of duty in and of itself- the major set off in search of Captain Janks. He found her sitting despondently at the _Virgon's_ controls, gazing out into the dark. It no longer offered much in the way of a view. Taking the captain aside, Bierns told Sibyl Janks that he had left one very dispirited Cylon in his Raptor, and he wondered if the captain might take an hour or two away from her duties to try and bring the poor thing back to life. The elated captain wasted no time handing over to her First Officer, whom she firmly instructed not to bother her for anything short of a visit by one of the Lords of Kobol. When the captain finally returned to the bridge some two hours later, it was to offer Bierns a peck on the cheek and a quiet but heartfelt thank you. Another crisis averted.

And then the circus came to town. The commander took off for another of his solo flights, only to return with Ellen Tigh at his side. Ellen and Saul's joyful reunion quickly degenerated into a drunken carouse across B deck, but this was nothing compared to the madcap game of Pin the Tail on the Cylon that ensued the next afternoon. The president, the commander, the XO, and his wife cheerfully began accusing one another of being Cylons, much to the bemusement of Doctor Gaius Baltar, who finally had evidence that he wasn't the only person in the fleet on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Bierns thus found himself summarily abandoned at the precise moment when he needed Bill Adama's support the most. Bierns could interrupt the commander whenever he felt the need, and if he wanted (perish the thought) a meeting with the president he would get it. But there was one fiefdom on _Galactica_ that even John Bierns dare not violate, and one potentate whom he was loath to offend, and that was Major Sherman Cottle. The prickly doctor had an unhealthy addiction to confidentiality, which Bierns would have to circumvent if he was to take Simon's measure. The spook _hated_ sharing secrets- the very idea was an affront to his professional dignity- but in the end he concluded that there was no other way out of this particular box. A late night meeting in the doctor's office started with Bierns offering up the identity of both Simon and Sharon, and it ended many hours later with ransacked files and Cottle's assurance that Simon had done nothing to violate the Physician's Oath. Bierns would have been more relieved if he had not been so worried about what all that cigarette smoke was doing to his lungs, but he was delighted to discover that there was at least one psychiatrist in the fleet who might be able to help Sharon Valerii. Professor Amelie Fordyce of Caprica's Apollo University, a recognized expert in the use of hypnosis to break down addictive behaviors, had ended up on the _Rising Star_. Yes, she told Bierns, she would be delighted to work with Miss Valerii. Would she mind collaborating with two and possibly three other Cylons? A truly wicked gleam had entered the good doctor's eyes: no, she wouldn't mind that at all.

A week after Shelly Godfrey had finished introducing Cavil to the airlock, the fleet was awash with rumors. Cylons were walking around Galactica foot loose and fancy free (true); Cylons were responsible for this dreadful change of course that had taken them out into the dark (false: the fleet had never really had a course to begin with). Everyone was starting to see Cylons in their soup, in no small part because Bierns was busily planting rumors of his own. "Bad" Cylons were trying to exterminate the human race, but "good" Cylons were trying to save them. "Good" Cylons had sent them into the dark, and now the "bad" Cylons could no longer find them. And so forth. It was a classic hearts and minds campaign, which the spook was prepared to wage relentlessly against his current archenemy of choice, namely the president. The major had tried his best to acquaint Laura Roslin with the facts of life, but the president seemed constitutionally incapable of understanding that her "one size fits all" approach, which in practice translated into a policy of "the only good Cylon is a dead Cylon," played right into Cavil's hands. The major's tour de force for the week, however, had come only at its very end. After the commander had finally got his head out of the sand, Bierns had dressed him down. What in the name of the gods did he think he was doing? Was he deliberately trying to hurt Shelly Godfrey every third hour of the day? Didn't the man see that this naïve and vulnerable young woman had real feelings for him? He urged Adama to apologize, preferably over a candlelit dinner for two in his quarters. The chagrined commander had agreed, but Bill and Shelly had barely sat down to dinner before Bierns started spreading it abroad that the commander was befriending the gentle but courageous leader of the "good" Cylon faction, who had heroically risked her life to flush the leader of the "bad" Cylons out an airlock. There was a press conference in Shelly and Lydia's future, and at a minimum John wanted to guarantee them an open-minded audience.

. . .

The major examined his notes. Simon O'Neill, husband of Giana O'Neill and stepfather to Jemmy. A medic in the colonial fleet, with four years of service to his credit. A degree in surgical nursing, followed by residency at a Picon hospital. _Part of the first or second wave,_ Bierns mused. There had been four waves of infiltrators in all, each wave being exponentially larger than its predecessor. The spook knew better than to trust Simon's academic credentials. The Cylons had proven remarkably adept at forging the papers required to support the cover stories of their agents.

Family currently berthed on the _Cybele_. The wife was working full-time as a knuckle-dragger on the _Galactica_, while Simon was on unattached duty and working wherever the fleet needed him on any given day. Bierns decided to make his approach at the evening meal; he had learned that both parents made a special effort to return to the ship in time to share dinner with Jemmy….

The refectory was crowded: Bierns had been counting on this. A table for four with but three occupants created the perfect opening for a lone visitor to the ship, especially one carrying a tray of food in his hands.

Bierns came up behind the medic and looked over his shoulder. He caught Giana's eye.

"Hi. Do you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all, Major. Please, have a seat."

Bierns circled the table, sat down, and turned to face her. He was genuinely puzzled.

"I'm sorry … but have we met?"

Giana's smile was warm and sincere.

"No, but you're quite a celebrity on _Galactica's_ hangar deck, which is where I work. I'm a knuckle-dragger." Giana turned toward her husband. "Simon, this is Major John Bierns of the Colonial Secret Service … the only man in the fleet with his very own Raptor." Giana turned back to Bierns. "My husband … Simon O'Neill." The two men shook hands. "And this is Jemmy, my daughter by my first marriage."

"Are you a real spy?" Jemma was looking at him with wide-eyed curiosity.

Bierns laughed. The CSS had been the subject of more than a few films- overly dramatic action thrillers in which the hero always wore elegantly tailored suits, drove a vehicle that came equipped with roughly fifty different on board weapons systems, and killed twenty or more bad guys during the course of an ordinary day's work. No one ever bothered to explain how all this murder and mayhem was kept out of the press—perhaps that was what made secret agents secret.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Jemma, but I'm afraid that there really is no such thing as a spy. Most of us just came to work every day, sat at our desks, and filled out reports. Lots and lots of reports."

The child clearly did not believe him. She gave him a _very_ grown-up look; she understood why he couldn't talk about what he _really_ did.

"But I would like to talk with your father for a few minutes … alone." John winked at Jemma. "I'm going to send him on a top-secret mission!"

"_Really?_" Jemma's wide eyes stretched even wider.

"Jemma, enough!" Giana shifted her attention back to the major. "You can use our cabin." Giana couldn't begin to imagine what a CSS officer would want with her husband, which made her uneasy….

As soon as the two men were alone, Bierns went on the offensive. Fours were difficult to read; he wanted to break through Simon's calm exterior and provoke some kind of response.

"You have a nice family, Simon." Bierns sighed in feigned resignation. "But then you have two families, and I am compelled to wonder which one actually commands your allegiance."

The Cylon said nothing.

"We know that you're a Cylon—a Four, in fact. One of the Sixes revealed your identity to us last week."

"So what happens next?" Simon remained as imperturbable as ever.

"That's pretty much up to you. Doc Cottle put you under a microscope, and he assures me that you have not been selectively murdering your patients. As far as I'm concerned, that's enough to keep you out of the brig. I'm here to issue a warning, and to ask for your assistance. You should know that your identity will not remain secret much longer. You must have heard the rumors circulating throughout the fleet about the Cylons in our midst. We're going to arrange a press conference for two of the Cylons in question, and they won't be holding anything back. Your identity _will_ be revealed. For your safety and that of your family, let me urge you to move to _Galactica_ forthwith. You must also decide whether to tell Giana yourself, or let her learn the truth over the wireless. I believe that I can help you there, but you're going to have to pick a side."

"I reject your premise, Major. I can protect my family without being disloyal to my people."

The spook shook his head. "Simon, _it is not_ a question of loyalty or disloyalty. Like it or not, the collective must inevitably fracture into two distinct factions—those who think that the annihilation of humanity is a good idea, and those who think just the opposite. The breakdown has already begun. You cannot parse this distinction by trying to save your family on the one hand, and consigning the rest of the human race to oblivion on the other. It's time for you to decide how you want this war to end, and get into the fight."

"Be careful what you wish for, Major. I may decide to side with the majority—or are you now going to tell me that most of the collective has turned its back on the war?"

"Hardly. Look, if you want to cozy up to Cavil, just let me know when there's a resurrection ship in range and I'll personally airlock your ass! And good luck to you trying to explain why, in all this time, you haven't done a damn thing to forward the cause." Bierns sighed again, but this time he was venting his frustration. "Simon, you've already made your choice, so I'm going to make this easy for you. My proposal falls under the heading of 'you help me and I help you'. There's an Eight on _Galactica_, a sleeper agent. The conditioning is superb, and someone did a first class job constructing her family history. We want to deprogram her, and offer her the same choice that I'm offering you. I'm putting together a team, which so far consists of two Sixes and a prominent human authority in behavioral psychology. But you're the expert on Cylon neural physiology, so your input may mean the difference between success and failure. Help us, and you help yourself. We're going to paint Sharon as the ultimate victim of this war—someone who's been robbed of her identity, her free will, a slave in all but the name. You'll become the Cylon who's trying to heal lives rather than take them. Your wife and daughter will be _so_ proud, and that might just be enough to salvage your marriage. It's your call."

John Bierns opened the door, and walked out of the room.


	13. Chapter 13: Not All That We Are

CHAPTER 13

NOT ALL THAT WE ARE

It had taken John very little time to gather the priest's belongings because there were so few of them. Now, everything was spread out on a table in front of Bierns and Doctor Fordyce. They were looking for something that seemed out of place, something that simply didn't belong. And they weren't finding it. The spook's initial reaction as he surveyed the table was that there was nothing here to get excited about. What stared back at them was the detritus of a professional life—clothing and toiletries for the most part, supplemented by religious pamphlets and the paraphernalia of priestly ritual. John was about to concede this round to Cavil when Amelie began to attack the clothing. She turned out pockets and examined seams. And suddenly, there it was. They both stared at the tiny wooden figurine that rested in Amelie's hand, and then they looked at one another. No words were necessary. The elephant was exquisitely carved and highly polished, with a fine lacquer finish. It belonged in a collector's display case, not in a priest's pocket.

The spook's next step was to toss Boomer's locker and rack and, when he came up empty there, to begin casually interviewing her fellow pilots. He expressed an interest in the pilots' off-duty pursuits and hobbies, and he struck gold. It was Starbuck who mentioned in passing that Boomer's passion was collecting elephant figurines.

With Adama's approval, Doctor Fordyce carefully scripted the first and most critical session of Boomer's deprogramming. It would take place in the chapel because Amelie and John both believed that this was the most innocuous and therefore the most likely setting for meetings between the priest and the pilot. Simon would take the lead; Lydia and Shelly would be there primarily to support the medic, and thereby move Boomer from denial to anger and acceptance as quickly as possible. Adama, Bierns, and the doctor would wait in the concealment of the adjoining alcove, and enter the chapel only when Sharon was activated.

Boomer and Crashdown were exploring a system near the plane, six jumps removed from the fleet. When their scheduled return was imminent, John Bierns entered Boomer's quarters, and placed the elephant on her bed.

. . .

Their jobs kept them apart during the day, but for Simon and Giana O'Neill, the nights had proven stormy indeed. It was not suspicion but worry that had driven Giana to press her husband about his connection with Major Bierns. She was concerned for Simon, but she also had a daughter to think about, so she wasn't about to tolerate secrets within her family. Simon's confession at first struck her as a joke in very bad taste, but reality soon sat in—the expression on her husband's face made it clear that this was not some stupid prank dreamt up by her fellow knuckle-draggers. She had slapped him, and then she had started beating on his chest with her fists. Simon did nothing to defend himself. Eventually Giana had collapsed to the floor, sobbing, asking repeatedly how he could have condemned them to a life of lies. Simon had dropped to the floor beside her, and pleaded for understanding. He could not help being a Cylon, but he had chosen not to let his nature define him as a person. He was still the same person today that he was yesterday, a man who loved his wife and daughter and who would sacrifice everything to protect them. He had turned his back on his people, and had done so without regret. He loved his work: he tried to describe the satisfaction that came from helping others, helping the very people whom his kind had vowed to exterminate as a species. It was the start of a very long night.

In the morning, Giana had sought out Major Bierns. She angrily demanded to know how long the major had been sitting on the fact that her husband was a Cylon. Did Adama know? More than anything else, however, she wanted him to explain why Simon was still at liberty. Wasn't he a threat to the fleet?

John had taken the understandably distraught young woman to his Raptor, pausing en route only long enough to ask Galen Tyrol to find Lydia as quickly as possible. The Cylon was very much in love with Sibyl Janks, hence might be able to help Giana in ways that were far beyond the spook's reach.

"Giana, may I ask you what at first sight must seem like a pretty stupid question?"

"Go ahead, Major."

"Do you think that human beings are all good, or are there some among us who are bad … perhaps to the point of being beyond redemption?"

Giana hesitated. She respected the major, and she thought that his question deserved a serious reply. "I don't know whether anyone is truly beyond redemption … but yes, there are certainly some bad people out there."

"Well, if there are good and bad among us, shouldn't we at least be receptive to the possibility that there is good and bad among the Cylons as well?"

Giana smiled. "You're talking about the rumors … that there are "good" Cylons in the fleet who are trying to help us. Is that what you're trying to say, Major, that my husband is still free because he's one of the "good" Cylons?"

"Giana, I don't know your husband very well, but I do know two things about him. First, Doc Cottle tells me that Simon is proficient at his job, and that he's done a lot of good for the people of this fleet. And I also know for a fact that the Cylon leader in this fleet was pressuring your husband to blow up the _Cybele_, but he refused. He stayed as far away from the other Cylons as possible. True, he didn't betray them, and you are entitled to consider that a black mark on his record, but personally, I'm rather impressed by the fact that Simon has tried to be loyal to one side without being disloyal to the other. Your husband seems to have a pretty firm sense of right and wrong. He strikes me as a good man who just happens to have entered the universe as a Cylon, and that's why he's not in the brig."

It was at this point that Lydia arrived. After performing the introductions, Bierns bluntly asked Giana if she would like to escort the young Cylon to the nearest airlock.

Giana was shocked; it had never occurred to her that people might want to airlock her husband simply because he was a Cylon. Surely he deserved a fair hearing, a chance to defend himself?

"But aren't you prepared to divorce him simply because he's a Cylon? Have you given him a fair hearing?" Lydia, who had taken a seat opposite Giana, didn't mince words.

Giana remained silent … there was really nothing that she could say in response.

Lydia stared sympathetically at the human woman. _What can I say that will help? How can I get her to understand?_

"Giana … a part of you probably wonders if a Cylon … a machine … can love. I don't know what I could possibly say that would convince you, but yes, we can love, and it's not a matter of programming. The best way I can phrase it is to say that Cylons may look like mature adults, but appearances can be deceptive. In so many ways, when we enter this life we are little more than small children. Like children, we are endowed with a capacity for feeling, but we learn the meaning of love and every other emotion only by interacting with others—above all, by interacting with humans. That's why this war has been such a tragedy. Cylons cannot evolve in isolation from the larger universe; without humans to guide us, to love us, we can never reach our potential. I can't begin to tell you how much I envy you and Simon. I'm in love with someone on the _Virgon Express_, and I want nothing more than to marry and to have the family that you already enjoy. That's the height of my ambition, Giana … to be happy, and to bring happiness to the people I love. In your heart, do you think that Simon is all that much different?"

Giana was close to tears. "I don't know what to do," she confessed. "Everything in my head is just so confused!"

Lydia moved to sit by Giana's side. She reached out, and clasped her hands. "So why do anything? This is not the time to make decisions that will affect you for the rest of your life … you and your daughter both. Why don't you give yourself as well as Simon a chance? Talk to him, talk to your little girl … take the time to sort out your feelings. Be honest with him, hold nothing back, but give him a chance to communicate his feelings as well. You might also consider talking to a woman in the fleet, Doctor Amelie Fordyce. Simon is working with her to help another Cylon, who has been horribly manipulated by my people. Doctor Fordyce is an impressive person. She might be able to help you … to help you both."

Giana nodded in agreement. "All right. I love my husband … I don't think that I want to lose him. But a marriage can't be built on lies. I can get past the fact that he's a Cylon, but I'm having a very hard time understanding why he never trusted me enough to tell me the truth. Respect and trust are as important to a relationship as love."

"That's a good place to start," Bierns interjected. "And I agree with Lydia that Doctor Fordyce could be a big help to you both. But Giana, you might want to ask Simon not only why he lied to you but also why he felt that it was necessary to lie to you. Sometimes people lie for no other reason than to shield the ones they love from truths that are impossible to bear."

Lydia and John both prayed that the O'Neills would succeed in putting their lives back together. Each understood that the future would be shaped not by Laura Roslin and William Adama but by tens of thousands of colonial survivors who had a great deal in common with Giana O'Neill.

. . .

Sharon Valerii did not expect to find One in the chapel-the rumors about the priest had reached every corner of the battlestar- but she was surprised to find a Four and two Sixes awaiting her arrival. She had jumped to the conclusion that a Two would now take charge, and she had not even suspected that there was a Four in the fleet. Simon held out his hand to take the elephant, and then ordered her to report on the planetary system that she had just explored. Had the Cylons been there? Had she figured out a way to contact them and pass on the fleet's coordinates?

Sharon's answer to both questions was firmly in the negative. Simon pressed harder. Had she even attempted to find a way to reestablish contact with their brothers and sisters? Sharon heatedly replied that Cavil had given her no such instructions. It was at this point that Simon summoned the three humans to enter the chamber.

Sharon the Cylon was utterly shocked to see Commander Adama, Major Bierns, and an unknown female come to stand alongside the Four and Sixes. This made no sense at all. Could they all be Cylons? Three of the mysterious five of whom the Cylons never spoke? For Sharon matters became even more confused when Simon introduced the woman, a behavioral psychologist, Doctor Amelie Fordyce. Doctor Fordyce offered her hand to the dark-haired Cylon, told her not to be alarmed, said that they were all there to help her. Sharon looked helplessly from one Cylon face to the next. _What was she supposed to do?_

Lydia steered her gently into a seat; Adama took the one beside her, and reached out to cover her smooth young Cylon hands with his old and wrinkled human ones. The others brought up chairs that had been stacked along the wall, and formed a semicircle around her.

"Sharon," Doctor Fordyce asked, "if you had to make a choice between being Cylon or human, one or the other, forever more … if you had to make that choice right now, before you left this room, which path would you take?"

"The human," Sharon replied; there was no hesitation or doubt in her voice.

"Do you know why?"

"I'm happier when I'm under." Sharon sniffled. "I'm happier when I'm human." She looked off into the distance. "I like myself … I love myself then." Her voice was filled with regret.

Simon leaned toward her. "Eight, do you remember being conditioned? Do you remember the technique that they employed?"

Sharon nodded. "They downloaded entire programs into me—my family history, personal likes and dislikes, skill sets, everything … including an obedience program. Then they installed activation protocols. The elephant … it triggers a default mechanism that is buried inside all of the other programming. It turns everything off, so that the Cylon side of me can reemerge."

Simon turned to Doctor Fordyce. "This is pretty much what I was expecting. The technique is crude, but it works well enough … for a while. The problem is bleed through. The Cylon leaves markers behind every time she's activated; at first, the human Sharon finds a way to rationalize behavior that is incompatible with her core values and beliefs … with her basic loyalties, but over time the contradictions become harder and harder to dismiss. Left untreated, Sharon will become trapped in a feedback loop that attacks the firewall between the two personalities. In human terms, she will suffer a nervous breakdown."

"Multiple personality disorder? Schizophrenia?" Amelie was running all of the possibilities in her head. The resulting picture was very ugly.

"I cannot say," Simon replied. "There is no research underwriting any of this. Sleeper agents were to be programmed and released into the field, sometimes to carry out very specific missions, sometimes to respond creatively to situations as they spontaneously arose. I do not believe that much thought was given to the treatment of the unstable personalities that would eventually return to the collective."

"So use and discard? Gods," Adama said, "you people don't have any respect for life, do you? Not even your own." His tone was harsh and bitter. He slid an arm around Sharon and pulled her protectively close. She leaned her head against his shoulder: _he's like a father to me … the only father I've ever really had._

"Does this mean that we have to go in and delete all of the programming? How much of Sharon would be left?" Bierns fully agreed with the commander; he had never imagined that anyone other than the CSS could be this callous.

"No," Lydia cut in. "We find the obedience program, and remove it in its entirety. Then we go in, program by program, and eliminate the activation protocols. This probably amounts to nothing more than a line or two of code in each instance. When Sharon no longer responds to the elephant, she'll be free."

"_What Boomer has to decide_," Shelly added, "is how much of Sharon she wants to retain. Let's not forget that her cover story is just that … a cover story. None of it is real. Boomer's life began somewhere around the time that she enlisted in the colonial fleet. We need to talk to Boomer."

"In a minute." Amelie got up and walked to the altar; when she returned, she handed Sharon a pad and pen. "Sharon, Boomer won't be privy to any of this, so you have to tell her … you're the only person she's likely to believe. Tell her as much as you can, but above all else, make it clear to her that you want this to end … that you want to be Boomer. We'll work with her. However long it takes, we'll give her the life that you both want."

Simon pocketed the elephant, and a dark cloud seemed to pass across the Cylon Sharon's face. . . .

"Commander Adama! Sir, what are you doing here?" Boomer looked at the circle of faces gathered around her, recognized the major and the two Sixes. A sharp intake of breath yielded almost instantly to confusion. "Sir, I don't understand. Where am I, and who are these people?" She gestured at Amelie and Simon. "Why are we here?"

"This is Doctor Amelie Fordyce, and one of our resident medics, Simon O'Neill." Adama paused. "Are you sure that you haven't met them before?"

Boomer looked them over carefully. If she had ever met him, then she was positive that she would have recalled the dark-skinned medic— no one was likely to forget those eyes! And the doctor was just as distinctive. Her hair was long and an impossible shade of black, but when she turned her head in the light, some of her tresses seemed to turn blue. Boomer searched for the word … _cobalt, that's it, cobalt. Who dyes their hair cobalt?_

"Sir. Yes, sir. I'm quite certain that I have never seen either of them before."

"Boomer," Amelie said, "you are sitting on a sealed envelope, and inside there is a letter that you wrote to yourself a few minutes ago. Please open the envelope, and read the letter."

"I don't understand," Boomer said defensively. I don't remember writing a letter … I can't remember the last time that I wrote a letter!"

"Please, Boomer." Adama's voice broke. Boomer looked at him, and what she saw in the commander's eyes chilled her soul. Adama's eyes were glistening, and they were filled with pity. She had never been so frightened in her entire life.

Boomer reached beneath her and pulled out the letter. She tried to open the envelope, but her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely hold it. After several tries, she gave up. Wordlessly, she offered it to Amelie Fordyce. The doctor slit the envelope with her fingernail, and silently handed it back to the young Raptor pilot. Sharon started to read.

_I am Sharon Valerii, and I am a Cylon. Specifically, I am one of the series that is designated by the number Eight. I was activated at the Resurrection Hub thirty two months before the attack on the Colonies. My programming as a sleeper agent was designed by the Ones, whom you know as Cavils, but the installation was carried out by a Six. She does not resemble Lydia or Shelly; in appearance, she is closer to the Six who is now in the brig._

_All of your memories prior to awakening on the transport that was carrying you from Troy to Picon are manufactured. They are lies, all lies. There was a Cylon agent on board the transport who was monitoring you. If your cover had failed to convince Captain Alchemer, the agent would have triggered an explosion to destroy the ship. But you fooled them all. You succeeded beyond our most optimistic projections. _

_Ironic as it might seem, you succeeded too well. You became the very person you were charged to imitate. You became human, and in so doing you corrupted me. I am the person who sabotaged the water supply, not you, and I want you to know that the act gave me no pleasure. I thought it foolish and unwise- this hounding of what little remains of mankind is cruel and pointless- but I have been conditioned to obedience. Unlike you, I have no free will. I am a slave, forever condemned to do the bidding of others. I have been forced to commit an act of great injustice, and I live in fear that I will be compelled to commit yet more heinous crimes in the future._

_Boomer, I beg you to put an end to this. Your love for Galen and Commander Adama, for your shipmates, for the ship itself, has eaten its way into my soul. The contradiction between what I want to be and what I am forced to be is tearing me apart, and in time my suffering will destroy you as well. These people can help you. I have told them how I was programmed and conditioned, and I believe that they can go in and erase it all, and with that, set you free. For you to be happy, I have to die, but do not be afraid. I want this! Perhaps a small part of me will survive, deep inside you. Perhaps the best part of me can become your conscience._

_On the inside of your left arm, just above the wrist, there is an interface port. You access it by making a small incision at the base of your palm. Simon and Doctor Fordyce can use this to connect you to a computer. They can scroll through the programs, find the right lines of code, and hit 'delete'. It's as simple as that. Just make sure that they don't miss anything! You will have to decide whether you want them to erase all of your memories about Troy and our family. Maybe it would be for the best—just keep Boomer's memories, the only real ones that we possess. You should, however, keep the skill sets: I don't think you would ever have passed flight training without them!_

_This is for the best, Boomer. I love you, and I always will._

_Sharon_

Boomer dropped the piece of paper as if it would burn her fingers. She looked wildly around the chapel.

"This isn't happening," she whispered, "_this isn't happening!_"

"Boomer, you're confused and scared." Shelly reached out to her, squeezed her knee. "But it's okay. We'll help you through this, however long it takes … and whatever you decide to do."

"_I'm not a Cylon! I'm Sharon Valerii! I was born on Troy._" Boomer was sobbing uncontrollably, and Adama was cradling her head against his chest. "_My parents were Katherine and Abraham Valerii_," she wailed.

And then she broke down completely. "_Oh, gods, help me_," she shrieked, "_somebody please help me!_"

Commander William Adama, who should have been her enemy, clutched the Cylon daughter whom he loved more than life itself to his chest. If it came to it, Bill Adama was prepared to sit there and cradle her for all eternity. 


	14. Chapter 14: Press Conference

CHAPTER 14

PRESS CONFERENCE

"Are we on? Frak, we're on. Go…. Live, from the _Galactica_, it's the Colonial Gang. It's a new talk show that brings you the inside scoop on the fleet's movers and shakers. I'm James McManus, formerly of the _Caprica Times_. With me are two of the only legitimate journalists left in the universe. Playa Palacios, veteran commentator for the _Picon Star Tribune_. Welcome. And my wingman, Sekou Hamilton, former editor of the _Aerilon Gazette_. Today's press conference is the first to be scheduled aboard the battlestar since the decommissioning ceremony, and it comes at a time when the fleet is rife with rumors that Cylons are able to move freely about the decks of our only capital ship. Playa, what have you been hearing?"

"Jim, my sources tell me that there are indeed a number of humanoid Cylons on the _Galactica_, and not all of them appear to be locked up in the brig. I've been told by one particularly well informed source who wishes to remain anonymous that two different copies of a female model known as number Six have been spotted in many key areas of the ship, including _Galactica's_ highly secure CIC. And I have further been able to confirm that Commander Adama has asked for their navigational advice on several occasions, and that he is turning to these machines for help with our FTL jump calculations."

_And who_, Mc Manus wondered,_ did you have to frak to come up with these tidbits of information?_

"Thank you, Playa. Sekou, have these rumors made it to Colonial One, and if so, what has been the president's reaction?"

"Jim, as you would expect, the president refuses to comment publicly on anything that falls under the heading of 'rumor'. However, a contact in Laura Roslin's inner circle has told me that privately the president is seething at the military in general and Commander Adama in particular. The Cylon presence on _Galactica_ has not escaped the president's attention; in fact, it seems to be a matter of increasing concern. A few days ago, President Roslin took the extraordinary step of summoning Major John Bierns of the Colonial Secret Service to her office for what aides are characterizing as a quote substantive discussion that ranged across many areas of mutual concern unquote. I had a chance to talk briefly with Laura Roslin this morning, and I asked her if Cylon activity in the fleet was one of the areas in question."

"The president reiterated her stated policy that all matters of fleet security fall within the purview of the military, and suggested that I take the matter up with Commander Adama."

"In short, Roslin ducked the question."

"I wouldn't go that far, Jim. The president's office has consistently referred inquiries about the Cylons to military command. The issue will undoubtedly come up at today's briefing …"

"And it appears that this press conference is just about ready to get underway." McManus was famous for cutting his colleagues off in mid-sentence. "I see that Commander Adama has just entered the room, along with Colonel Tigh, Major Bierns, and a number of other individuals. The commander is approaching the podium and … here we go."

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard the _Galactica_. Before I turn this briefing over to Major Bierns, I would like to take this opportunity to address the many rumors circulating within the fleet about the Cylons. There are at present six Cylons on the _Galactica_, none of whom pose a danger to this fleet. Two of the individuals in question are being held in the brig; we have classified them as noncombatant prisoners of war, and are according them the privileges and protections that they are entitled to receive under the Articles. The remaining four are here on the podium to my left. Shelly Godfrey and Lydia Sextus have petitioned for and received asylum on the _Galactica_, and in return they have been supplying us with vital intelligence and technical assistance. . . ."

Bierns was idly scanning the faces in the audience. A large press contingent had come out to cover the decommissioning ceremony, so he was not surprised that he recognized only a few of the reporters in the press pool. And then his eyes locked onto a figure in the third row—a _very_ familiar figure. _Well, well, well, what do we have here? I wonder if the Cylons have noticed her? She certainly doesn't look like her usual self!_

"Simon O'Neill is a medic with several years of service in the Colonial fleet." Adama was speaking in a deliberate monotone; he wanted this to sound like just another day at the office.

"He is a husband and adoptive father, a highly qualified and able medical professional, and his loyalty to his family and by extension to this fleet is not in question. These five individuals have always known that they were Cylons; Lieutenant Sharon Valerii, call sign 'Boomer', only became aware of her true nature a couple of days ago."

On the hangar deck, the knuckle-draggers looked at one another in shocked disbelief. Boomer a skin job? _Gods,_ Specialist Socinus thought, _this is going to destroy the Chief._ Boomer was well liked, and her romantic relationship with Galen Tyrol was one of _Galactica's_ most open secrets.

"She is what the Cylons call a 'sleeper agent'—someone who has been heavily conditioned to believe without question that she is human, but who could be activated by Cylon agents to perform acts of sabotage. Lieutenant Valerii is the person who destroyed our water tanks, but she is also the individual who then went out and promptly discovered a new source of water for the fleet. The lieutenant was devastated to learn the truth, and quickly agreed to cooperate fully in our efforts to remove her conditioning. Progress has been rapid, thanks to the hard work of a team led by Simon O'Neill and Doctor Amelie Fordyce of the _Rising Star_. Boomer remains on active duty; she is one of our best Raptor pilots, and has my complete confidence."

Adama paused, and looked around the room; he wanted his next point to sink in. "_Galactica _is more than a ship – it's a family. Sharon is part of our family, and on this ship, we do not easily give up on the people we love."

Adama turned and gestured to Major Bierns to replace him at the podium.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. For those of you who do not know me, I am Major John Bierns of the Colonial Secret Service. Commander Adama has asked me to continue this briefing, and to share with you some of the hitherto classified information that we have amassed about the Cylons. Some of this intelligence has been given to us by our Cylon friends"- John nodded at the four Cylons standing behind him—"and one of the detainees, but a portion of it derives from observations that I was able to make during and after the attack on our home worlds. After the event I was able to land on several of our planets, and to penetrate a number of cylon outposts. . . ."

Adama looked sharply at the major. This was not what the spook had told him when he first came aboard!

Shelly and Lydia looked at each other, the same question in their eyes. _He infiltrated multiple Cylon facilities, and he's still alive?_

"First, let my touch upon the current generation of centurions." Bierns dimmed the lights. "Lieutenant Gaeta, would you please run the film that I gave you earlier today?"

"I shot this film on Caprica several days after the attacks, when the Cylons were engaged in mopping-up exercises. As you can see, today's centurion is considerably taller than his first war predecessor, and has weapons systems built into the chassis. He is very fast, and possesses both keen eyesight and hearing. The armor is difficult to penetrate, but an explosive round will get the job done. Curiously, this centurion is highly vulnerable to attack from the rear. The neck joint is especially fragile. The easiest way to kill one of these things is to leap on its back and snap the neck."

Dead silence descended upon the room. Everyone present, human and Cylon, was thinking pretty much the same thing: _there's only one way the major could have learned that particular fact!_

Bierns raised the lights, and continued. "There are either twelve or thirteen human form Cylon models. Five of them are a complete mystery; neither we nor the Cylons know anything about them at all. There are seven active models, four male and three female, identified by the series numbers one through six and eight. There is no number seven. The Cylons have been unable to tell us whether this is a discontinued model, or the number assigned to one of the missing five. Hence our continuing uncertainty about the total number of human models."

Bierns looked down at the podium as he focused his thoughts. He wanted to slip his next statement past all but one person in the room. "At one time or another, all seven models have been present in the fleet." The spook was careful not to look in D'Anna Biers' direction.

_What?_ Commander Adama again looked sharply at Bierns as he rapidly ran the numbers through his head. _I only count six! What's going on here?_

"Two of the men are no longer with us. I'm sure that many here had a nodding familiarity with the priest known as Brother Cavil. The Cavils are Ones." Several of the people in the audience gasped at this disclosure.

"They provide the Cylon collective with its political leadership, and are the principal architects of this war. Not surprisingly, Cavil was the self-appointed leader of the Cylon clique in this fleet. Aaron Doral, the public relations officer whom we stranded on Ragnar Station, is a Five. The suicide bomber who blew himself up on C deck was another copy of this model. The Fives are lapdogs. They strike me as the most 'machinelike' of the various models, and in all things appear to obey the Cavils without question."

Bierns turned to look over his left shoulder. "Simon O'Neill is a Four … a model that has devoted itself to matters medical and scientific. They tend to be quiet and studious. Finally, one of the Cylons in the brig is a Two, who goes by the name of Leoben Conoy. This model is highly spiritual and, given the chance, will fill your head with metaphysical nonsense. I have had numerous conversations with our Two, and they have been quite enlightening, but I must confess that at the end of the day I'm always in desperate need of a drink."

Lydia was shaking her head in agreement. The Twos were such smug know-it-alls.

"The female models are the Threes, Sixes, and Eights; Shelly and Lydia are Sixes, Sharon an Eight. The females are all people of faith, and the manipulation of their most deeply held beliefs was a critical element in the lead up to the war. This requires me to say a few words about cylon political culture, which is democratic in the most literal sense of the term. When an issue requires a vote, the copies of each model deliberate among themselves, and then report their vote to the collective. Each series thus has a voice theoretically equal to the others, and a majority vote constitutes a consensus. The reality is quite different."

Bierns had a rapt audience. Every wireless in the fleet was tuned to the sound of his voice. No one, however, was listening more intently than the four Cylons standing a few feet behind him—or the fifth one seated in the audience. To Sharon this was all new; for the other four, it was the first time that they had heard anyone clinically dissect their society.

"The Ones command not only their own votes but those of the Fours and Fives as well. On any given issue, therefore, they require support from only one other model to form a majority. Typically, they obtain the needed support from the Threes or the Sixes, most often from both. In the case of the war, for example, the Cavils convinced both the Threes and the Sixes that the One True God had despaired of humankind, and had tasked the Cylons to rid the universe of sin by exterminating our entire species."

_Where is this coming from?_ Shelly knew that the major was venturing into areas that they had never discussed, and she was utterly certain that Simon would not have divulged this kind of information. Shelly looked hard at her sister … but Lydia seemed equally puzzled. That left Leoben, and she had to admit that he was perfectly capable of such indiscretion: the Twos sometimes got carried away by their own zealotry.

Shelly took a quick peek at Bill. Adama was listening hard; it was obvious that Bierns had not confided any of this to the commander.

"Although the Twos and the Eights eventually voted to support the holocaust and thereby made the vote unanimous, in the beginning both lines had grave reservations. The Ones had to convince them that genocide was a part of the One True God's plan for the universe, but this was not going to be easy because both models incline to a literal interpretation of the cylon sacred texts. These documents do not promote genocide, so the Cavils had to persuade the Twos and Eights to read a number of inherently ambiguous passages in the texts in a way that suited their purposes. It took time, but the Ones were finally able to win them over."

Shelly's jaw dropped, and Lydia was gaping at the major. No human had access to the sacred scrolls, and there was no conceivable circumstance in which a Cylon would share their contents with a human. Not even Leoben would go this far!

Simon was dazed. _Blasphemy_, he kept telling himself, _this is blasphemy_.

"But the Ones have committed a potentially critical error," Bierns went on. "They dispatched a fairly large number of Sixes to the Colonies, but they gave them so many different roles to play that of necessity their programming had to be somewhat elastic. Shelly Godfrey was situated in the Caprican bureaucracy, Lydia Sextus became a shift worker on the _Virgon Express_, and the anonymous Six who is the other Cylon down in the brig became a prostitute on Picon. Once exposed to human emotion, they began to absorb it: humanity filled out the template that those who engineered the holocaust had left largely blank. As they have become more and more human, the Sixes in this fleet have lost faith in their leadership, and in the war. In this context I would have everyone note that Brother Cavil did not meet with an accidental death, nor was he killed by humans: Shelly Godfrey shoved him out an airlock."

This brought another round of gasps from the audience. Bierns welcomed the interruption, for what he had to say next might well be the key to the entire struggle.

"I see in all of this the dim outlines of a second Cylon voting bloc—an anti-war coalition of Twos, Sixes and Eights that would be able to counter Cavil's faction. This would leave the balance of power squarely in the hands of the Threes. It is my professional judgment that we should seize upon every opportunity that presents itself to extend the hand of friendship to these four models."

"Frak that," someone muttered aloud.

Bierns leaned on the podium, and slowly looked around the chamber; when he resumed speaking, his demeanor was noticeably less stiff.

"Look, I know how hard this is going to be. We've lost billions and billions of people … and I would imagine that everyone in this fleet has lost someone they love. I would never encourage anyone to give up their hatred, or their thirst for revenge … I don't have the right. But what I would encourage people to do is … hate more selectively. In my heart there is no forgiveness for the Ones; they are the authors of the apocalypse, and the universe will be a much better place when they are all dead. But do the other Cylons deserve our hatred, or our pity? They have been manipulated and betrayed … and some of them have suffered infinitely worse. Should we hate Lieutenant Valerii, or regard her as a fellow victim? What must it feel like to have your sense of self-identity stripped away, to be robbed of your free will, to be conditioned to complete obedience? Her own people turned her into a puppet, and Cavil made her dance." Bierns slowly shook his head. "I doubt if there is anyone in this room who hates the Cylons more than Sharon Valerii … and no one has better cause."

"If we hate without discrimination," John continued, "if we persist in thinking of this as a war between 'us' and 'them', with no allowance for a middle ground, then we play into the hands of the Ones and abet our own destruction. You see, the Cylons possess one tactical advantage that we cannot overcome, and that is resurrection technology. Simon can explain this in more detail but the bottom line is that, when we kill the Cylons, they rarely die."

_And there it is_, John thought. _We cannot overcome resurrection on the battlefield, and in a world at peace it must inevitably result in a segregated society. Mortals and immortals cannot mix. The Cylons must throw over resurrection, but they will not do so en masse without the assurance of children, and they can only have children in relationships with humans._ No matter how many times he surveyed the problem, the answer was always the same. If the humans did not find the path to forgiveness in very large numbers, then the end game would be either extermination or enslavement. Getting them past hatreds to which they were richly entitled would always be the crux of the problem. John prayed that no one in the media pool was clever enough to follow this trail of logic to its end. The humans would have to be brought along one step at a time: it was far too early for them to come to grips with the fact that, in a fleet where men outnumbered women three to one, forgiving the young and attractive female Cylons for their transgressions against humanity would preface more intimate associations. 

"If there is a resurrection ship within range, their consciousness- personality and memories alike- downloads into a new body, and they carry on. Since this also applies to the Raiders and centurions, the Cylons are perfectly positioned to win this war through attrition. So peace offers us a chance to survive, but every day that we have to fight is another day that we are threatened with extinction. _We all know this to be true!_" Bierns slapped the podium to emphasize his point. _ "_We must, therefore, by our actions strengthen the reservations of every Cylon who entertains second thoughts about the wisdom of this war. The more divided the collective, the less effective their pursuit. Divide them in sufficient numbers, and they will be too busy grappling with one another to worry about us."

Bierns stepped away from the podium, and Simon came forward to take his place. Bierns pointedly moved to stand between Lydia and Sharon.

The Four briefly scanned the audience. "Cylon physiology," he said without preamble, "is closely patterned on human. We have a nervous system, and there is blood coursing through our veins. Our DNA is slightly different from yours, but our hormones are identical in every respect. The Cylon male produces sperm, and the female ovulates. We need to ingest food, and we require sleep. Our emotions are complex, and as filled with contradiction as your own. So what is it that makes us different … Cylon rather than human? The answer lies not in what we lack but in what we possess above and beyond the human norm. There are tiny microprocessors embedded throughout our bodies, but the ones that really matter are the chips inside our brains. The connection between the organic and the synthetic is seamless. I can download data from our information network into the chip, and then transfer the data directly to the brain. Suppose, for example, that I need to learn a colonial language with which I am completely unfamiliar. I would simply download the relevant language program, transfer it to my organic brain, and in a matter of minutes I would be able to speak the language with complete fluency. Conversely, I can imprint the memories and even the feelings that I accumulate from day to day onto the chip, and from there upload it to our information network. The only limitation on data transfer is that we have to be in direct physical contact with the network. We cannot simply phone it in, so to speak. The personality transfer at death to which Major Bierns alluded is by far the most complex such activity; it requires a special facility, the resurrection ship, and the individual has to be within range of the ship or the transfer will fail. This is the only setting in which a Cylon can experience terminal death."

Looking about the room, Simon thought that a few of his listeners were trying honestly to digest these revelations, but most of the faces that stared back at him were filled with revulsion. He wasn't making any friends here. He tried again.

"Sharon has been unable to download for the past three years, and in my case it's closer to five. What happens to us when we are separated from the network for long years at a time? The answer, in the simplest possible terms, is that we become progressively more human. We have to rely more and more on our eyes and ears to gather information, which we process and store in our brains in exactly the same way you do. We develop a heightened sense of intuition, and increasingly filter the world around us through our feelings as well as our minds. For all practical purposes, Sharon and I ceased to be cylon a long time ago, and in time the same thing will happen to Lydia and Shelly. None of us desire to return to the collective; our future, like our present, is here."

Simon paused for breath. He would have preferred to stop at this point, but he had promised Major Bierns that he would broach one more issue. The Four had strongly objected, arguing that the impact on morale would be unpredictable, but John had countered that it was better to anticipate problems than to deal with them after the fact.

"There is one more point that I would like to make about resurrection. The Cavils never engage the fleet unless there is a resurrection ship within range. It is possible, therefore, and perhaps even likely, that our Viper pilots have faced the same Raider on more than one occasion. We shoot them down, and they promptly download everything that they have learned into the network. In this way they gradually master our tactics, and eventually they will start to anticipate them. At that point, our casualties will dramatically increase. I agree wholeheartedly with the major—our best strategy is to run and hide, but if we cannot hide, then we must reach out to any Cylon who is willing to listen."

Bierns returned to the podium, and stood beside the tall Cylon. "After the attack, I landed at several different places on the surface of Caprica. The Cylons were everywhere, both the centurions and the human models. This is going to be hard to hear, but I believe that many people survived, because what I saw at every turn can only be described as Cylon hunting parties. They were hunting humans for sport. The Twos and Eights always went out to hunt by themselves; the Sixes were more unpredictable. I encountered them alone, and I encountered them at the head of large troops of centurions. Once I got a sense of what was going on, I began to hunt them in turn."

The spook's eyes had turned cold, and there was death in his voice. Simon unconsciously backed away, and it occurred to Adama that he had never known this man at all.

"I broke trails, made it easy for them to follow me, and when I got them alone, I confronted them. The Cylons are stronger than us, faster, and the Sixes are exceptionally quick. But in the beginning, it never occurred to the cat that the mouse might be able to fight back! By my standards their unarmed combat techniques turned out to be sloppy and undisciplined, and their overconfidence bordered on arrogance. Imagine fighting a Six who goes out to hunt in a tight-fitting party dress, wearing a raincoat buttoned to the throat, hair and make-up right off the cover of a high-fashion magazine!" Bierns snorted. "They were easy targets, and in the beginning I was able to take them alive and extract a good deal of useful information. But over time they became more wary, more proficient. I thought that they were just becoming more cautious, but I was wrong. It's now clear that every Cylon I had to kill downloaded, and added their experience to the data stream. Every Cylon whom I engaged knew more about me than his or her immediate predecessor, and in the end that almost got me killed."

"How many Cylons did you fight?" The question came from somewhere in the back of the room.

"Seventeen," Bierns responded. "The last one was a Six, and she had really taken my measure. She kicked me up one side and down the other. She bragged that she was going to drag me back to her base by my hair, and that I was going to get to know some of her brothers and sisters real well. That's the only reason I'm still alive. She was determined to capture me, and I was more than willing to kill her on the spot. She could have killed me a half dozen times; I got only one chance, and I took it. And then I got off planet as fast as I could. . . ."

"Simon's right … the Cylons start at the bottom of the learning curve, but they progress quickly. For them, death is just a learning experience. Once the Raiders have seen everything we have to offer, they'll start leading our pilots to the slaughter. If we don't get off this treadmill.…" Bierns did not bother to finish the sentence. "Does anybody have any questions?"

Hands went up throughout the room, but it was Playa Palacios who claimed the floor. "Lieutenant Valerii, what went through your mind when you discovered that you were a Cylon?"

Boomer glared at the reporter. "I had just returned from a long away mission. I went out thinking that I was human, thinking that I was from Troy, that I had lost a family when the dome collapsed. On every mission I wear a locket that has a picture of my mother and father, and me as a little girl … my one tangible connection to the most important people in my life. And then I discovered that none of it was real. It was all fabricated for my mission … it was all a lie. _I'm a frakking Cylon,_" she screamed. "I betrayed a man who is like a father to me, a man I love! And I frakked up the life of another man I love, a good man who doesn't deserve any of this. And why? _Because I'm a lying machine!_"

Sharon was sobbing, and Adama raced to her side, took her protectively in his arms. It was an image that those present would long remember—the all too human commander of the battlestar _Galactica_ instinctively sheltering the young Cylon from the darkness that surrounded her soul. There were many more questions, but the most important one had already been answered. Inadvertently, Sharon Valerii had opened a door inside the human heart. For the first time, ordinary men and women felt a spark of genuine sympathy for a machine that had proven to be altogether human.


	15. Chapter 15: The Six With No Name

CHAPTER 15

THE SIX WITH NO NAME

_We're going to need more marines,_ Bierns thought. Two per shift for Shelly, another two for Lydia—hell, they would need whole squads to supplement the contingent that was suddenly displaying a keen interest in brig duty. It had taken the Six with no name less than a day to establish herself as the queen of down below. Saul Tigh, whose duties included a loose supervision of brig personnel, had been the first senior officer to learn of the astonishing goings on that were taking place below decks. The colonel had reported to Adama, who had merely shaken his head before passing the word to Bierns. After the spook had gone down to look the situation over, he had suggested to the now incredulous commander that they ask the Six to enlist, and then give her a commission as _Galactica's_ morale officer. He was speaking only half in jest; overnight, the marines had become the happiest bunch of colonials in the entire fleet.

The Six had complained about the lumpy mattress in her cell. It was thin and threadbare. This had set off a mad scramble fleet wide to find the softest, plushest mattress in existence. The marines would pool their cubits, and if cubits wouldn't do, they'd trade with booze and cigarettes. Rumor had it that an entire squad had descended upon the _Prometheus_, where a riot had nearly erupted when Eric Phelan, the king of the black market, tried to rewrite the book on extortion at the marines' expense. The marines got their mattress. There was a new rule in play in and around the brig: what Six wanted, Six got. The Cylon was part pet, part toy, part mascot, and all hooker—the ultimate fantasy of most of the men and not a few of the women assigned to guard her. And it wasn't just her formidable sexual repertoire.

Ten days after her arrest, an emotionally exhausted Adama and an overworked Bierns went down to the brig, ostensibly to investigate the situation in person. The two men were actually going to stage a bit of impromptu theater, which Bierns hoped would allow him to slip in under the Six's guard and gain her trust. This wasn't going to be easy. The marines found Six delightfully abrasive and sarcastic, and they loved her all the more because she openly scorned authority figures. Six would never sleep with an officer—she had standards. Six hated officers, the marines hated officers—it was a marriage blessed by the gods. Granted, Six was a bit eccentric—the One True God, and all that. Most of the marines were willing to overlook it. Bierns figured that he would have to communicate with her on her own level, or he would never get anywhere at all.

They found Six in the middle of one of her exercise routines. Six didn't actually need to work out to maintain her wonderfully trim figure, but there wasn't much else to do in her cell, and the marines really enjoyed the show. She liked to reward them as best she could, so three times a day she stretched and curled, jumped and kicked, and did all of the other things that a predatory killing machine was supposed to do to stay in working order. Naturally she got hot, but it was the marines who got bothered. Of course, all of this climaxed three times a day with a hot shower, and because she was an extremely dangerous killing machine, it took a minimum of eight marines to escort her to and fro. Happily, it would have been an egregious breach of regulations to leave her in the shower unattended, so the said eight marines got to stand around and watch as Six did truly wondrous things with her bar of soap. Mysterious things happened to her towel, and there never seemed to be a spare set of clothing immediately to hand. No doubt about it, the Fields of Elysium had found a new home in _Galactica's _brig.

One of the marines opened her cell door, and stepped aside; a second soldier carried a small table across the threshold and sat it down. When he withdrew, Adama and Bierns moved forward. Each man placed a bottle of ambrosia and a bottle of aged brandy on the table. The four bottles were all high-end, and would fetch a small fortune on the black market. Adama stepped back, but Bierns remained at the table; with a casual gesture, he invited the Cylon to join him.

The Six had been lying on her new mattress, which was now complemented by silk sheets, a soft blanket, and a large, well-stuffed pillow that had set the marines back yet more cubits. She was rehearsing the litany of complaints that she was planning next to run by her pets. A large area rug and a couch, or at the very least a comfortable chair, were now high on the agenda. Projecting could only get one so far. She stood when the two men entered her still unacceptably barren cell. _Mister High and_ _Mighty in person,_ she thought, _the great lord Adama._ And a civilian. Six didn't like civilians—unless, of course, they had _dreamy _hair like Gaius Baltar, or some other obviously redeeming feature. The unprepossessing man standing on the opposite side of the table most definitely did not have _dreamy _hair. If he had any redeeming qualities at all, they weren't out in the open. The Six slowly approached the table.

"Here to interrogate me," she petulantly asked, "or is it straight out the nearest airlock?"

"Airlock? Is that what you do with human prisoners—torture them, and then put them out an airlock?" Bierns thought that the Cylons were obsessed with airlocks. It had to mean something.

"No-o-o-o," the Six countered. She allowed her gaze to sweep fondly over the marines outside the cell. _Her_ marines, _her_ pets. Six was _very_ possessive. "We tend to keep them around. Humans do have their uses, you know." Her eyes travelled to Sergeant Erin Mathias, settled on the Gunny. Matty's well educated tongue had brought the Six an epiphany moment. Surely the One True God would not have bothered to inspire humans to such breathtaking creativity if He had cast the die for their extermination. What would be the point? It was no wonder that the Cylons in the fleet had proven to be such a collection of frak-ups. They weren't doing God's work after all, and they knew it. _Well_, Six thought, _maybe not the Fives._ Six was firmly of the opinion that the Dorals belonged on all fours, preferably at the end of a long leash. They were so clueless. How typical that Aaron would blow himself up in one of the few places on the aging battlestar that had no value whatsoever.

"Actually," Bierns remarked, "we're not here to question you at all. But we'd appreciate it if you would settle a wager for us. These are the stakes." Bierns gestured at the bottles. "Please forgive my rudeness. I'm Major John Bierns of the Colonial Secret Service."

The Six slowly ran her fingertips over one of the bottles, caressing it. A tiny frown creased her forehead. "And what's my reward, Major, for helping the winner?"

"His everlasting gratitude, I should think." Repartee was one of the spook's strong suits. Bierns could play this sort of game all day.

"That's awfully vague. How about I keep one bottle … the wages of sin?"

"Sounds reasonable." Bierns looked back over his shoulder at Adama. "Agreed?" The commander, who had not spoken a word, glared at the Cylon and responded with a curt nod. Bierns turned back to the Six. "Agreed," he said. Things were going well.

"Won-der-ful. So how can I help you fine gentlemen?" Six made 'gentlemen' sound like something that had got stuck on the bottom of her shoes.

"Well, what we'd really like to know is whether the marines have come up with a drinking song in your honor."

The Six smirked. "Do you mean something like….

_Sixes to the right of them,_

_ Sixes to the left of them,_

_ Sixes in the front of them,_

_ Forward … the marines!_

The Six was singing, but she was slightly off-key.

_Into the valley of her cleft_

_ They rode,_

_ Charging her mound all to know_

_ The glories waiting down below,_

_ Forward … the marines!_

Right on cue Adama audibly groaned, but the Six kept on, all oblivious.

_On they drove,_

_ Boldly they rode,_

_ Lances piercing,_

_ To find the node,_

_ Forward … the marines!_

A big, well-rehearsed grin spread across Bierns' face.

_Sixes to the right of them,_

_ Sixes to the left of them,_

_ Sixes turned their backs on them,_

_ Forward … the marines!_

The Six with no name trailed off, and came slowly around the table. She reached out, and gently walked her fingertips up the major's left arm. She looked at him, her eyes filled with mock innocence. "Did you win?"

"My dear, it was never in doubt!" Bierns turned to face Adama. "Bill, you really need to get out of the CIC more often. Below decks, this ship has a life all its own."

"Yes, Bill, you really need to come visit us more often." The Six was purring.

Feigning disgust, the commander raised an arm to fend Bierns off. Still not saying a word, Adama turned and stormed out of the brig. Yes, it had gone very well indeed.

_. . ._

An indeterminate amount of time passed. Minutes, hours … it hardly mattered. Bierns and the Six had gone through almost all of the ambrosia, and the Cylon was in full alcoholic flight. Slurred speech, an unsteady gait whenever she got up from one of the chairs that the marines had fetched—if anyone wanted to know what a drunken machine looked like, the brig was the place to be. The marines, Bierns thought (and that admittedly took a great deal of concentration), should have been selling tickets for this performance. They would have made a fortune.

Word must have spread throughout the battlestar. Tigh was the first to arrive; he looked at the Cylon as if she was a particularly exotic life form—though his eyes never drifted far from the still unopened bottle of Caprican brandy on the table. Then at some point Shelly and Lydia showed up, their marine escort in tow. Shelly, who had never touched alcohol in her life, could only gape at her sister's antics. Lydia was a bit more worldly wise- she had imbibed the occasional glass of wine and inhaled the odd hallucinogenic- but nothing prepared her for this. They were both reasonably sure that their anonymous sister had gone where no Six had gone before.

The Six with no name espied her two sisters. She got up, staggered over to lean against the bars of her cell, and wordlessly extended her half-filled glass. Shelly didn't know whether she was more repulsed or offended. "No, thank you," she said, in a distinctly patronizing tone. Lydia was more tempted, but she too demurred.

"No takers?" The Six with no name sounded genuinely hurt.

A bright idea managed to fight its way through the alcoholic fog, to find temporary residence in her inebriated brain. She made her unsteady way back to her chair, and sat down with rather too much emphasis. She drained her glass in one long swallow. "Behold, Major, the one power in the universe that no nuke can destroy, the one weapon to which the Cylon nation must fall … love! You can't declare war on love.… Sister Lydia here won't blow up her ship because she's so _desperately_ in love with its yummy human captain. And Simon won't blow up _his_ ship because _he couldn't imagine_ life without his little human wife and his little human daughter because _he loves them_. Leoben has gone and found himself a new god … um, pardon me, a new goddess. He now worships at the altar of the all-knowing, all-powerful Kara Thrace! But he wants to know her just _a wee bit better_." The Six paused and held up her hand for all to see, the thumb and index finger microscopically separated. "_A teensy, weensy bit better_. He hears birds chirping in his sleep, he sees cozy cottages and white picket fences in his dreams—and of course there's lots of little hybrid Leobens and Karas playing in the grass. Leoben is so smitten with love that he honestly believes we can _all_ live happily ever after! No more war, no more hate, humans and Cylons swimming together in the stream. And then there's the Eight. Poor, poor Eight. Boomer jettisoned the water, and then, she personally found _loads _more water! And why? Because she just _adores_ her human father, worships the ground he walks on. He's the only man in the universe who has ever treated her with kindness, so naturally she goes and falls _completely_ in love. And finally there's my other sister … the ever so virtuous Shelly. My sister Six utterly failed to discredit Baltar and his _dreamy_ hair. She just _has_ to do the right thing, but why oh why? Because of Bill Adama. Look at her, Major! Isn't it cute, the way she blushes at the mere mention of his name? Dear, sweet Shelly is so in love with the idea of being in love! How many babies do you want, dear, sweet Shelly? Six? Ten? An even dozen? There's the future of the proud Cylon race, Major! Poopy diapers and 2 AM feedings!"

Shelly was glued to the floor. She was watching her sister with wide-eyed fascination. Were her feelings really this obvious? Was this why the people who crossed her path were looking at her so oddly?

Lydia was infuriated. She should never have confessed to Cavil that she had feelings for Sibyl, begged him to spare her ship. By now the frakker had probably told the entire collective that she was in love. He'd claim that she had been thoroughly corrupted—proof positive that the human pest had to be eradicated. Then he'd bring up her sisters … the bastard probably wanted to box her entire line.

Six poured the rest of the ambrosia into her glass. She raised it into the air, paused to study its green contents. Then she raised the glass to her lips, tilted her head back, and allowed the heady liquor to trickle down her throat. When she was finished, she got up and walked around the table. She looked down at the major, and then proceeded rather unsteadily to sit on his lap. She wrapped her hands around his neck, and pulled his head towards her. "And how about you, Major, hum? Would you like to frak me, and keep on frakking me until I suddenly start throwing up in the morning? Watch me get all round and plump? Would you like me to give you a little, baby Biernsie all your very own? Hum?" Six leaned back, and started wagging a finger in John's face. "Well, it's not going to happen because I'm already in love with him (now she was pointing a finger at Private DaSilva, or perhaps it was Private Bonnington) and him (Private Ditko for sure) … and especially her." Her wandering gaze had finally settled on Sergeant Mathias, who was sitting at a desk, head down, busily attacking the regrettably small stack of paperwork in front of her. "On my honor, Major, Matty has a tongue that will make you believe there really is a God in the universe, and that He loves us all! Matty will make you believe in miracles!"

John Bierns already believed in miracles. For one, he believed it to be a miracle that he was still upright. _The name's Bierns .._. _John Bierns. Okay, all right … yeah, I may have done that once or twice, but I've never, ever resorted to 'shaken not stirred'. Where in the name of the gods did the people who wrote those cheap thrillers that Adama so adores come up with this crap?_ Adama's beloved protagonists went through more booze in four chapters than Bierns drank in an entire year, and they got more girls in two hundred pages than he had managed in his entire life. He had tried to match the Six glass for glass, but the spook was no Saul Tigh, and far too quickly the room had begun to spin. He knew it was time to quit when he looked around and spotted three Sixes: he would have sworn that there was only one in the brig!

"So, Six …." John reached up to run his fingers through her hair … there was so much of it … long, gorgeous hair. _What was he going to ask her? Oh, yes …_ "So, Six, do you wanna go home? You know, back to your baseship … or whatever?"

"Aw, are we back to that airlock thing again?" The Six had erased what little distance remained between them. Now the tip of her nose was resting pertly against his. She wet her lips with her tongue, began to moan.

"Airlock? No-o-o, I was thinking … Six! Stop squirming!"

Shelly was gripping the bars with both hands … gripping hard. _What is my sister doing now? She couldn't be …_

Sergeant Erin Mathias raised a hand to cover her eyes. She let out a low moan of her own. _Does the major have any idea that he's co-starring in what will undoubtedly become the most popular porn flick in fleet history?_ Everything was being captured on videotape!

"Anyway, I was thinking … you know … you and me and Leoben, we'd take a Raptor and go looking for a baseship…. There's got to be one around here somewhere." Bierns started to giggle. "A baseship … there's never one around when you need it!"

"A baseship? Biernsie, have you _lost_ it? What the frak would I do with a baseship?" The Six was nibbling on Bierns' lower lip. "There aren't any real men on a baseship! Just a bunch of wind-up toys." Now it was Six's turn to giggle. "Have you seen the way Aaron dresses … those ridiculous suits of his! And Leoben … he looks like a refugee from a thrift shop. Cavil's so boring … but at least he has a pulse, which is more than I can say for poor Simon…. Have you ever noticed how closely Simon resembles a floor lamp? Only you get more action from a floor lamp." Six was alternately sticking her tongue in Bierns' ear, and nibbling on his ear lobe.

Shelly was blushing, right down to the roots of her hair, but Lydia was taking mental notes. _Yes, I should try that … oh, and that…_.

The marines were awestruck … a centurion could have clanked through the brig, and they would barely have noticed.

Up in the observation booth, Adama had a tight smile on his lips. _The bastard's finally getting his due. _The spook had dropped so many bombshells on the press conference that Adama had lost track. He knew, however, that there was absolutely no point in pushing the major for answers. He had accosted the man about the identity of the Three, but by then Bierns the cold-blooded Cylon hunter had gone back to the shelf and insouciant Bierns had taken his place. Adama loathed insouciant Bierns. He longed to shove his fist through the patronizing smile with which this particular Bierns persona greeted every question. The commander had agreed to participate in the current farce only because he hoped that the Six would provide a clue to the Three's identity, but so far the damn machine hadn't come close. Bill was so frustrated that he was ready to chew nails. The commander was looking forward to replaying this tape, with a full glass of brandy to hand. He reminded himself to make multiple copies.

John vaguely remembered that he was actually supposed to be doing something here. _What was it?_ Something about earning her keep? _Yeah … that was it._ "So, Six, if you don't wanna go home, what are we supposed to do with you? I mean, you're causing a water shortage, and the marines are running out of soap! It's a full-blown crisis! You can't stay here forever!"

"Why not? I'm your prisoner, aren't I?" Now Six was licking the major's throat, though she paused every now and then for a quick bite. "I like being your prisoner … it's fun." Somehow, Six was able to lick and purr simultaneously, and her eyes were full of mischief.

"_In vino veritas_," Bierns thought as he let out a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a groan. He prided himself on his absolute command of all of Kobol's dead languages. He was pretty certain that none of the colonial tongues were quite up to the needs of the moment. _Colonial tongues?_ He giggled some more. _That's rich … Gods, but I'm good…._

"C'mon Six, help me out here! You've gotta be good at something!"

Six leaned back, and appraised the major anew. "Why Biernsie, I'm hurt—really, _really_ hurt. Don't you think I'm good?" She went back to nibbling on his lip, then bit down hard. The major screeched, and the Six took advantage of the opportunity to start exploring the inside of his mouth. When she was finished, she daintily licked up the small trickle of blood. Six loved the taste of human blood … it was so warm and salty.

"Typing?"

"It would ruin my nails."

"Laundry detail?"

"Bad for the skin."

"Day care?"

"_Day care!_" The Six couldn't believe what she had just heard. "_Day care?_ Save that one for dear, sweet Shelly, Major. My sister should get some practical experience before she starts popping all of those _adorable_ little Adamas out of her oven!"

Bierns let the thought rattle around in his brain. _Shelly … day care…. Yeah, that would work!_ "Hey, thanks Six … that's a fantastic idea! I bet Shelly would be great with kids!"

The Cylon in question, who was standing just a few feet away, lowered her head and began to pound her fists against the bars of the cell. Shelly longed for children; the suspicion that she and every other Cylon might be sterile tormented her. But she didn't feel like advertising her deepest desires to the entire fleet. _And what would Bill think? Why did this have to happen when things are starting to go so well between us?_ This was no longer a simple matter of embarrassment; no, this was total public humiliation.

Shelly sensed someone standing beside her, and looked up in surprise. Sergeant Mathias draped her arm across Shelly's shoulders, and gave her a gentle squeeze of encouragement. It was debatable which of them was the more embarrassed—both had secrets that would be all over the fleet within the hour. And for Erin Mathias, matters were about to become a good deal worse….

"Six, I'm beginning to get desperate…. Hey! I know! Isn't your model on the cutting edge of unarmed combat?" Bierns giggled yet again. _Cutting edge … unarmed combat … where do I come up with this stuff?_

The Six resumed purring. "I have to admit … we have been known to break the odd neck."

"So … how would you like to become the marines' combat instructor? Maybe teach the whole ship some fancy new techniques?"

Sergeant Mathias audibly gasped. Shelly Godfrey could think of only one thing to do … she wrapped a sympathetic arm around the Gunny's waist. The spook and the Six with no name certainly weren't taking any prisoners.

"Hum … that has possibilities." The Six made a heroic effort to think it over. _Get all hot and sweaty with my marines? Teach self-righteous twits like Apollo a thing or two? Hot showers with my students? Oh, yes, this has real possibilities!_

"Hum … Sergeant Six … that has a nice ring to it!" The Six with no name bent down and planted a wet kiss on the major's lips. "Will I have to call you 'Sir'?"

"Truth be told, Six, I'm not a major at all. They just gave us ranks to make the brass in the Colonial fleet happy. They never liked taking orders from a bunch of civvies like the Loyal Order of Spooks!"

"Well, Biernsie … in that case … I accept!"

The bleary-eyed Bierns didn't know whether Six could throw a towel over her shoulder, much less a marine, but he didn't particularly care. The whole idea was to get her to imprint on somebody—or, in this case, a whole bunch of some bodies. Besides, a Six who was in bed with the marines might one day have her uses.


	16. Chapter 16: Dinner Dates

**WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT, FOR MATURE READERS ONLY.**

CHAPTER 16

DINNER DATES

**22:45 Hours, the Night Before**

**Battlestar Galactica**

**Commander Adama's Quarters**

Two nights in a row! The commander had invited her to dine in his quarters two nights in a row—just the pair of them. The first night had begun awkwardly but ended well. Bill had apologized for what he called his boorish and insensitive behavior, and Shelly had accepted his apology with as much grace as she could muster. Each was honestly curious about the other, so there was a lot to talk about. Bill wanted to know if Cylons were born; Shelly had explained why activation was the more appropriate term. She had asked about his childhood, the best times and the worst. He described the tragedies that had stalked his family, and how on his fifth birthday, like the lost brother whose name he had taken in accordance with Tauron custom, he had been invited into the C-Bucs' locker room. They had talked for hours, becoming more and more comfortable with one another. Bill found that he could share parts of himself with Shelly that he would never dream of revealing to any of the men and women under his command, including his old friend Saul Tigh. Shelly possessed that rarest of gifts—the ability to listen without being judgmental.

The evening had drawn to a close. She was at the hatchway when the commander had come up behind her. He had spoken but one word, in a husky voice. Her name. Shelly had turned, and after a moment of hesitation the commander had leaned forward to kiss her. It was a shy kiss rather than an erotic one, the kiss of a man who lost his confidence in the presence of women. Shelly had cradled his cheek in her hand, and gently kissed him in return. Then she had softly but firmly wished him good night.

On their second dinner date, Shelly discovered that she loved Adama's company, craved it in fact, and she was amazed at how swiftly time passed when they were together. Three hours felt like thirty minutes … no, less … far less. He was attentive and kind: if he remembered that she was a Cylon, he gave no sign of it. The commander's quarters were an oasis of calm, a tiny world free of tension.

They were sitting on the couch, two cups of hot tea on the table before them. The gesture touched Shelly deeply: she knew that the commander, in any other circumstance, would be drinking alcohol. He had abstained the entire evening, and that was entirely for her benefit.

"Bill, there's something that I would like to ask you, but it's a silly question so you don't have to answer unless you want to."

The commander smiled. "Somehow, I suspect that I don't really have a choice."

Shelly smiled in turn, but then she turned serious. "If none of this had happened … if we had met, say, at a dinner party on Caprica, both of us unattached … would you have noticed me?"

"Oh, I think so … I've always had a weakness for beautiful blonds!"

"Bill Adama!" Shelly punched him lightly on the arm. "Do you mean to tell me that, if I was wearing my hair like Lydia, you wouldn't have noticed me?"

Bill took a sip of tea while he lingered over the question; he pretended to give it serious thought. Then he slowly nodded his head. "I think I might have noticed you." Shelly didn't realize that the commander was gently teasing her.

"Well, would you have done anything about it? Come up to me and started a conversation?"

"That's hard to say. A lot depends on who else is present. Are you the most beautiful woman in this hypothetical room?"

"_Yes, damn you! Would you have asked me out to dinner?_"

"Absolutely." Shelly was glaring at him now, but Bill didn't mind a bit. He actually liked this side of Shelly's personality: there was a hint of jealousy in the air, and at his age he found it very flattering.

"And when you took me home … would you have tried to kiss me?"

"I would have done more than just try!"

Shelly sighed deeply, and her voice turned wistful. "I wish …"

Bill knew exactly what Shelly wanted, and for once he knew exactly what to do. He reached out and grasped her shoulders, pulled her close. _I could drown in her eyes, and I'd be the happier for it_. The thought reverberated through his mind.

"Like this."

The human and the Cylon kissed—a kiss that communicated mutual longing and an aching need for something far more intimate. It left Shelly deeply flushed. Her body felt like it was on fire. She wanted him inside of her in the worst possible way, but she also remembered her vow never to charge his barriers. She wanted him to be certain … no, it was more than that: she needed him openly to acknowledge his understanding that this would have consequences. For the commander of the battlestar _Galactica_ to make love with a Cylon would have inescapable consequences. Word of it, somehow, would spread throughout the fleet; his judgment, and even his loyalties, would be called even further into question.

"Bill, this is me … Shelly … only me. I have no hidden agenda … there's no one pulling my strings. I want you so badly …"

"Shelly, I know. This time it's real, and we both want …"

Shelly pressed her fingers against his lips. "No! Bill, please! I don't want to make love with you, and then walk out of here and pretend that it never happened. I don't want you to feel ashamed that, maybe in a moment of weakness … you had sex with a machine! I'm a person, Bill … a real person with real feelings. Cavil used me, and it left me feeling dirty … feeling like, no matter how much I tried to scrub the filth off of me, it would never come off! I don't want it to be like that with us. I want the entire universe to know how I feel about you, but if you have any feelings for me … can you admit to them? You have a duty—to this ship, this crew … the whole fleet. _I will not _let you blindly do something that brings us an hour of pleasure but diminishes you forever in the eyes of your son, and all the other people who love you. That will only lead to regret. John was right: I have to try and win them over … and you have to give me the chance." Shelly bunched her fists in frustration; she was trying to be noble, trying to protect him … and her body was screaming in protest. All she really wanted was to fall into his arms. "Bill, I will do anything you want … _anything_ … I can't fight you … I can't. Just tell me that tomorrow morning, when you see the look of betrayal in Lee's eyes, it won't reach you. That's all I ask, that you be honest with yourself."

Bill ran his fingers up and down her spine; he could feel the heat pouring out of her and he wanted her, oh, how he wanted her! The first time they had been alone in this room he had wanted her as well, and he was tired of denying it. But decades of doing his duty held him in an iron grip. _She's right, damn it, she's right. Duty to others trumps all other considerations._

Bill bowed his head in surrender. He sighed, regret mingling with frustration. "You're right. I don't want to kiss you … and then look over my shoulder to see if anyone's watching. Shelly, I have feelings for you … don't doubt that for a minute … _very strong feelings_! And I'm not ashamed of them. But you're right … this fleet is not ready to have its military leader go to bed with a Cylon. Morale would take a bad hit, and that could jeopardize everything." And then the commander grinned wickedly. "But that doesn't mean you're going to walk out of here without your lipstick getting a bit smeared!" He pushed her back against the pillows, and then he leaned over…. Shelly wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him the rest of the way.

_Soon … it has to be soon._ And then their lips met, and Shelly Godfrey was swept far out to sea.

. . .

Sometime thereafter, Shelly and the commander emerged from his quarters. A considerate officer would always escort a female guest back to her place of residence, and Bill Adama tried to be a considerate officer. The two marines attached to Shelly Godfrey lagged discreetly behind. When they reached her hatch, the commander politely kissed her on the cheek.

"Good night, Miss Godfrey."

"Good night, Commander Adama."

Bill waited until Shelly had shut the hatch behind her, and then he turned and walked away; he decided to take a quick look at the CIC before heading back to his own quarters.

The two marines took up their station outside Shelly Godfrey's cabin. They looked at one another with knowing grins. They were standing in air so thick with pheromones that you could cut it with a knife. The rumor mill would have fresh meat in the morning.

. . .

**22:45 Hours, the Night Before**

**Battlestar Galactica**

**Lydia's Quarters**

A stack of papers lay on the desk, their contents ignored. John Bierns had summoned Sibyl Janks to the _Galactica_, ostensibly to review questionable fuel consumption rates on the _Virgon Express_. Bierns had met the captain on the hangar deck, the sheaf of papers to hand; after a brief exchange of pleasantries, he had escorted her to his former quarters, which still functioned as his daytime office. Lydia had arrived a few minutes later, at which point the spook had quietly made his departure.

The two women stared at one another for the briefest of moments, before Lydia rushed to her lover and threw herself into Sibyl's arms. The two women kissed passionately. Fingers fumbled with buttons and zippers, and in no time at all the two lovers were on the bed, their hands exploring one another in a timeless ritual that both knew well. Tongues followed the paths laid out by questing fingers. Lydia took Sibyl's full breasts into her mouth, one and then the other; she teased her nipples with her tongue, a feather's touch that brought them fully erect. She nipped and she sucked; with her fingernails, she traced a course across Sibyl's stomach, grazed the inside of her thighs … the spot that always brought the captain to a heated frenzy. Sibyl began to moan, and then to pant; she reached out and began to run her own nails up and down the Cylon's back, reveling in the heat that her rhythmic strokes soon aroused. Lydia's fingers probed ever more deeply inside her, two fingers coursing back and forth, each stroke barely caressing her swollen clitoris. Sibyl moaned louder, her hips now keeping time with Lydia's rhythm; her back arched as Lydia pulled her hand away, bidding the captain's hips to follow. Then Lydia abruptly stopped, though only long enough to lower her head between her lover's thighs. Her tongue drew tiny circles around Sybil's clit, even as her fingers pinched the captain's nipples: a current of fire tracked across Sibyl's body, fusing breasts and clitoris into a single fiery cauldron. Lydia plunged her tongue deep inside the captain, swallowing juices that now flowed freely. She lapped them up, of a sudden raised her head to plunge her tongue into Sibyl's mouth, allowing the captain to taste the golden nectar, to sample the pungent odor of her own body. She pinned her lover's mouth, even as her fingers began another journey of exploration, across Sybil's clitoris, harder now, then pulling away, defying the captain's hips to rise higher, higher still. Deep in Sybil's throat, a long, low groan fought to escape as her hips bucked, faster and faster. Wave after wave of fire and pleasure poured through her body, pushing her on until the moment arrived, and a powerful orgasm finally claimed her.

But it did not leave her spent. Sibyl rolled Lydia onto her back, became the aggressor, her tongue savagely invading the Cylon's mouth. Now it was her fingers that explored, leaving livid trails across Lydia's belly, skating through the slickness between her thighs. Sibyl slid her fingers inside her Cylon lover, began a pulsating rhythm of her own, only to plunge her fingers into Lydia's mouth, bidding her to lick them clean, and with that experience the taste of her own juices, a flavor that mixed wine and roses. Sibyl began to suck on Lydia's breasts, a baby's suckling. The Cylon's breathing quickened, became a shallow moaning. The captain would have smiled if she had not been so intent upon satisfying her beloved. Lydia had never spoken of her deep desire for children, but her body could not conceal its need. Lydia was desperate to nurse, and Sibyl was determined to give her a child that they would raise together, a child that they both would love. And there was a way … oh, yes, there was a way.

Afterwards, the two women lay on their side, limbs entwined. Sibyl buried her head in Lydia's hair, and inhaled deeply. The scent of roses in the morning dew pervaded her nostrils; the scent still graced the pillows in Sibyl's cabin. The captain stretched out her arm, and flexed her hand so that she could see the ring that had decorated her finger for so many years. Her mother's ring. Her paternal grandmother's. It had passed through the generations of her family, the stone unimpressive—until one heard the stories. Sibyl had wanted to do this for a long time, but the moment had never seemed quite right. But now she reached up and, with difficulty, removed the ring. She wanted to seal the bond with Lydia, pledge her love as so many had before her. She held the ring up before her lover's eyes.

"Lydia, this is my mother's wedding ring; she gave it to me after my father died. She knew all about me, and she made me promise that, if I ever married, I would give this ring to the woman I loved, and continue a tradition that in my family goes back a long way. To offer it, and to receive it, is to seal a bond between two people that reaches from this world to the next. It is a pledge of love eternal. I love you, Lydia, and I cannot conceive of a universe in which I do not love you. Will you accept this ring, knowing all the commitments that it contains?"

Lydia's eyes grew bright with tears; she was so choked with emotion that she could not find words even when she fought for them. Silently, she offered her hand, to accept a treasure precious beyond all imagination. Once the ring was in place, the two women stared at one another, and at last they kissed. But this was a kiss that they had never shared before, a kiss that conveyed infinite tenderness, and it carried them to a corner of the heart some distance removed from the passion that for so long had bound them together.

. . .

**22:45 Hours, the Night Before**

**Battlestar Galactica**

**John's Raptor**

Because the Cylon gene bred true, the First Born of the hybrid children shared his mother's gift for projection. But there were no microprocessors in his brain to inhibit the reach of his imagination, and he had taken projection far beyond the boundaries imposed on his elders. It was late at night, in the quiet time on both ships, when the hybrid opened his mind and stretched forth, bridging the light years to join with a sister born not of the body but of the spirit. Deirdre, the Child of Sorrows. A kindred soul, but alone in a way that even John could barely comprehend.

He invited her, as always, to Galatea Bay, in the tropical zone of Aquaria's western continent. Warm water lapped the white sand beach in gentle waves, and in the dying light of late afternoon the clouds blazed with iridescent hues. Sometimes Deirdre would arrive first, and gather the driftwood for the bonfire with which they greeted the night.

On this beach he had taught her to walk, and later to run. In the warm and gentle water he had taught her to swim, and on this shore, with exquisite tenderness, he had both given and taken her virginity. Alone of her kind, she had transcended the limitations designed by others to become the woman that their indifference had long held at bay.

Love had emancipated her, brought her autonomy. No more was she ignored, her words dismissed as meaningless babble. She rewarded faith with meaning, nightly passed on her wisdom with the clarity of the finest crystal.

But the nights were long, so often they did no more than huddle together, the words left unspoken, simply staring out across a starlit sea. In the night, she knew contentment, and in her devotion he found at last a measure of peace.

Deirdre, the Child of Sorrows.

The beating heart of the Diaspora.


	17. Chapter 17: Divided Loyalties

CHAPTER 17

DIVIDED LOYALTIES

A refugee fleet that is perpetually on the move, John Bierns reflected, is equally a refugee fleet in a perpetual state of crisis. Equipment degraded on ships that were never meant to traverse a galaxy; food and energy supplies were steadily being depleted. The people of the fleet lived under a constant state of siege, their survival dependent above all upon the discovery of new resources to replace those consumed by hungry mouths and hungry ships. It was a struggle that, at the moment, the fleet was perilously close to losing.

Tylium reserves had reached the vanishing point. The fleet was capable of making two more jumps, after which it would go dead in space. True, one of the Raptor teams had found an asteroid that could satisfy their needs for the next couple of years, but Boomer and Crashdown had brought back bad news as well as good: the Cylons had got there first. They had a full scale mining operation in play, right down to the cracking plant. Hundreds of raiders would be guarding the asteroid, with gods only knew how many centurions on the surface. Attacking a superior force which had the inbuilt advantages of the defense was a near suicidal option, but it was the only option on the table.

Adama delegated the task of coming up with an operational plan to Apollo, Starbuck, and Tigh, but the three humans knew nothing about tylium refineries, or the kind of perimeter defense that the Cylons would mount. They needed help and they were counting on the Sixes, who professed to be engineers as well as pilots, to provide it. Enter John Bierns.

The spook initially ran the photo reconnaissance package by Lydia and Shelly, but they had been programmed for infiltration and piloting, not engineering. Both could plot a mean course, and both could land a heavy raider on a cubit, but neither could isolate the staging tanks for the refined tylium precursor. This forced Bierns to turn to the Six with no name who, as it turned out, claimed to know everything there was to know about tylium refineries and the defense thereof.

The Six with no name had taken to combat instruction like a fish to water. The marines had managed to cobble together the appropriate martial arts attire, the centerpiece of which was an extremely tight-fitting black body-suit. This no doubt materially contributed to the very long hours that the Cylon was currently spending in _Galactica's _tiny but well padded gymnasium. Every off-duty marine was reporting for training, and because they all turned out to be slow learners, "Sergeant Six" found herself teaching the same moves to the same marines first one day and then the next. She was still housed in the brig, but by fleet standards her cell could now be considered palatial, and Adama had agreed with Bierns' request to relax the rules around her. Although she was still continuously under armed guard, the Six no longer had to dine alone in her cell, and she certainly didn't lack for company in the shower.

The commander had chosen not to take issue with any of this, but he did stick at the spook's most outrageous proposal. The major wanted to turn out the lights in Six's cell, and turn off all of the recording equipment, for two hours a night every night. Adama had a pretty good idea what this request entailed, and his acerbic response was to remind his colleague that _Galactica_ was a naval vessel, not a brothel: he was not going to pimp for the Cylons! Bierns had finally got his way, but only at the cost of tendering a few more of his precious secrets. He told Bill that on Caprica he had observed centurions and human form Cylons interacting on multiple occasions. His observations had led him to the conclusion that the toasters were programmed to obey orders from the skin jobs without question, yet couldn't tell one skin job from the next. Since the odds were pretty good that, sooner or later, the marines and centurions would end up in a firefight, the spook reasoned that the commander might one day save a lot of lives if he gave the Six an emotionally charged reason to protect the marines by ordering the centurions to stand down. Adama had reluctantly signed off on a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a very liberal interpretation of which Bierns had promptly communicated to Erin Mathias.

And three weeks later, the very situation that Bierns had anticipated had come to pass. The spook would have much preferred not to test the Six's loyalties so quickly, but he did not hold a winning hand. The major pleaded with the Six. The situation was desperate, and they had no choice but to launch an all-out assault against a tylium-rich asteroid crawling with Cylons, the size and disposition of the enemy force being completely unknown. They would have to put boots on the ground, and Sergeant Mathias' force would undoubtedly take casualties, perhaps heavy casualties. Would the Six be willing to help plan the op, take part in the assault, and try to minimize loss of life by ordering the centurions to step aside?

To her credit, the Six had recognized the seriousness of the moment, and had refused to make a snap decision. She had questions, and she wanted assurances—and she wanted them from Adama and Roslin both. In the War Room, she was blunt and to the point. She would help, but only if the commander and the president both publicly affirmed that _Galactica_ would serve as a safe haven for any of her people on the asteroid.

The Six with no name had good reason to be cautious. The revelations at the press conference had unleashed powerful aftershocks throughout the fleet, and the resulting divides were at their most bitter on _Galactica_ itself. On the hangar deck, Chief Tyrol had gone out of his way to befriend Gianna O'Neill, but this had not deterred Specialist Callandra Henderson from calling Giana a "toaster lover" to her face. The insult had inspired Specialist Socinus, who tended to follow the chief's lead in all things, to plant his fist in Cally's face. This had earned Socinus an extended sojourn in the brig and Cally a trip to the med bay, where a thoroughly irritated Sherman Cottle assigned Simon O'Neill to set the knuckle-dragger's broken jaw. The lanky Cylon was now living in a state of perpetual bewilderment. By a process of elimination, Simon had become permanently attached to the staff of a senior resident who chain-smoked in front of his patients, and who welcomed him with open arms because Simon had, as Cottle put it, "the worst bedside manner of anyone in the history of medicine." Humans like Cally Henderson were now throwing temper tantrums around him on a daily basis, and as a result his wife was becoming more and more fiercely protective. The Four's state of confusion had eventually reached the point where he felt it necessary to ask Doctor Fordyce for help. Simon O'Neill thereby earned for himself the most unlikely of entries in Commander Adama's log—the first Cylon ever voluntarily to seek therapy.

Down in pilot's country, most of the Viper jocks wanted Boomer off the ship, preferably by way of an airlock, which caused the Raptor wranglers to rally round their fellow officer with a vengeance. Crashdown had punched out Apollo, who ended up in a furious argument with his father; Adama had sent both of them to the brig, the one for striking a fellow officer, the other for insubordination. Racetrack and Louanne "Kat" Katraine had mixed it up, and shortly thereafter a drunken Starbuck, who now counted three Cylons among her closest friends, had got into another row with an equally soused Colonel Tigh. The commander had dispatched all four of them to the brig as well, where John Bierns had hastily intervened to make sure that Starbuck got the cell next to Leoben. The Cylon had wasted no time announcing to everyone within earshot that Kara Thrace had a special destiny, and that it had something to do with Kobol and Earth. After seven days of putting up with this nonsense, Starbuck had proclaimed herself more than ready to kill Leoben several times over, which graphically demonstrated to all concerned that Starbuck's affection for Cylons did have its limits.

At the epicenter of all the chaos was the young Cylon who had always taken it for granted that she was human—and watching officers brawling all around her was doing nothing to help Sharon Valerii's emotional equilibrium. Boomer was on the edge of a nervous breakdown; she was now having daily sessions of her own with Amelie Fordyce, who strongly recommended that Adama keep the Cylon flying because she feared that it was the only thing holding her together. Bill wasn't about to take Boomer off Raptor duty, so he decided to pair her with Skulls while Racetrack and Crashdown finished up their time in hack. Everything had finally returned to something approaching normalcy by the time Boomer and Crashdown discovered the asteroid.

Starbuck's operational order required the use of three civilian freighters, and that left Adama no recourse but to invite the president to attend the briefing. The two estranged leaders had not spoken in almost a month, so the atmosphere was tense even before John Bierns and the Six with no name entered the War Room.

Six delivered her ultimatum, which sufficed to set the president off. After skewering the Cylon with a laser-like glare, Laura Roslin had launched a verbal broadside that relied heavily on the word 'machine' and concluded with a minor variation on one of her favorite themes: "_you don't keep deadly machines around. When they kill your people and threaten your future, you get rid of them!_" Adama had heard it all before, and he was damned sure that he was destined to hear it all again, so he just waited for the schoolteacher to run out of steam. He had only one question to ask her: did she have an alternative plan that was feasible and would put fewer lives at risk? Backed into a corner the president, still seething with rage, joined Adama in agreeing to the Six's terms.

The Six with no name was true to her word. "These," she said as she surveyed the montage of photographs, "are the staging tanks for the refined tylium precursor. And _this_ is the control room; the refinery itself is largely automated, but the mine involves a lot of heavy manual labor, so you will probably find that most of the centurions are concentrated there. A few more will be posted in the control room to protect the _skin jobs_ monitoring the whole operation." "Skin jobs" came out with a hiss, and it was aimed squarely at the president. Six had heard the epithet more than once; she wondered how the humans would respond if she retaliated by calling them "meat sacs."

"The perimeter defense is tricky. There is actually an inner and an outer defense, but the outer perimeter will remain passive until you violate it. The two rings will then open fire simultaneously, and attempt to catch you in the crossfire." Six raised her hand, and drew their attention to one point on the display. "There's a back door into the heart of the facility. A Viper can fly into the tunnel that houses the conveyor belt at this point, and follow it back to the surface. The entrance to the control room is _here_. This is where the Raptor assault force should land."

. . .

Colonel Tigh predicted that it would cost them, and it did. They lost Viper pilots to the Raiders, and still more pilots to the flak that the defensive guns threw up. The missiles that they hurled at the staging tanks were thrown off course by cylon jamming, forcing Apollo to thread his way through the tunnel—a stunt that culminated with a Starbuck-like, death-defying ninety degree vertical turn which brought him out on the surface exactly where the Six with no name had indicated. Apollo took out the staging tanks, and then organized the remaining Vipers into a makeshift perimeter that mowed the centurions down as they attempted to fight their way across the surface from the mine to the control room. This cleared the way for the Raptor assault, which consisted of three birds and a full complement of marines led by Sergeant Mathias and the Six, now improbably outfitted in a blond wig and wearing a stylish two piece black ensemble. This, she told a highly amused John Bierns, would identify her to the centurions inside the facility as an overseer; unless there was someone of equal rank in the control room, the centurions would ignore any attempt to countermand her orders.

Bierns made his way to the surface in his own Raptor. He had objectives that were well outside the mission parameters, and satisfying one of them would require a great deal of privacy.

. . .

"I don't like it, Major." Sergeant Mathias was squatting in the entrance to an oversized airlock. It looked to be about ten feet by twenty, with a ceiling sufficiently high to permit a centurion to stand erect. The walls were featureless save for a pair of hatches and their adjoining control panels. Mathias gestured toward the opposite hatch. "There's no cover, and we don't know what's waiting on the other side of that door. We could punch straight through, but I do not recommend close quarters combat in vacuum, especially against the toasters. Our best bet is to hang back until we've recycled the atmosphere, but vacuum won't even slow them down. If they're smart, they'll hit us while we're shedding our suits."

Bierns weighed their options. "Six," he asked, "is this chamber under surveillance?" The Six with no name, who was also wearing a full EVA suit, took a few moments to reply.

"Yes. There's a camera high on the wall to the left of this entrance. It feeds directly into the control room."

"How about out here?"

"No external sensors, Major … this facility doesn't warrant a hybrid. But you can bet that they know we're here."

_So they don't know our numbers. Let's make that work to our advantage._ "Right," Bierns said, "here's what we're going to do. Six and I are going in alone. They won't be expecting to see a party of two, so they may hold off on their attack until they get a better feel for what's going on. I'll stay suited, but once we've recycled the air, Six will take off her helmet and give them a good look. The last thing that they'll expect to see is one of their own. The confusion should buy us enough time to open the inner hatch; if there's a centurion or two on the other side, we'll find out soon enough whether they'll accept her orders! I'll remain in continuous voice contact." The spook turned to look down at Erin Mathias. "Sergeant, if this turns into a firefight, then your orders are to capture the control room. Do whatever it takes. Is that clear?"

"Affirmative, Sir."

"Right. Six, you're with me." Bierns crossed the threshold and, as soon as the Cylon was inside, closed and sealed the hatch. It took two full minutes to pressurize the chamber, and during every one of those one hundred and twenty seconds the spook fully expected to see a centurion charge in and riddle him with bullets. He hadn't felt this helpless since he was a child. Celluloid heroes might remain cool, calm, and collected in the face of imminent death, but John Bierns was scared out of his wits. It seemed like an eternity before the Six was able to remove her helmet and discard her flight suit; she stared at the camera for long seconds before nodding to John to unseal the hatch. Two centurions, as well as a Six and an Eight, were waiting just beyond, blocking a long corridor that led straight to the control room.

"Sister," the Six exclaimed, her surprise written all over her face, "what are you doing here … and _where did you come from_?" Their grubby work clothes suggested that the two Cylons were maintenance workers; as Bierns began to unfasten his own helmet, he was acutely aware of the two centurions looming behind them. Rake him to death with their deadly talons, shoot him … hell, if they refused to obey the Six with no name, they could squash him to death just by sitting on him! If they had miscalculated, Major John Bierns would be dead in a matter of seconds. . . .

The Six and the Eight were in total shock, but neither pulled out a gun, so the spook ignored them. The centurions had guns aplenty, and they were already bringing them to bear …

"No! He's with me! Stand down!" The Six with no name barked orders at the centurions as she stepped directly in front of the major to shield him.

The centurions thought about it, seemed to engage in a silent conversation. Another eternity came and went—and then they retracted their weapons and resumed their typically docile stance.

"You've _joined_ the humans?" The Eight's tone was incredulous. She was having a hard time believing the evidence of her own eyes.

"No … but we have entered into an alliance … to try and end this day with as little loss of life as possible. I'm happy to say, sister, that humans are not the irredeemable monsters that we were led to believe. A lot of them, like Major Bierns here, are honorable people. I no longer believe that this war serves a useful purpose, and I want to try a different path…. I don't know whether there's a resurrection ship out there or not, but thankfully, it doesn't really matter. Commander Adama has agreed to grant everyone here a refuge on the _Galactica_, and I promise you that you will be well treated. The major will attempt to send you back to our people, but that depends on their willingness to agree to a truce, however temporary. Isn't this a better solution than having the marines who are waiting outside storm this facility and put everyone to death?"

The Six looked at her sister with thinly veiled hostility. "So you have joined the humans! You frakking traitor!"

"May I join this conversation?" John Bierns had eased forward to stand alongside the Six with no name. His tone was polite and deferential: with two centurions standing mere feet away, he didn't want things to spin out of control.

"I consider Six a friend … and I trust her. Isn't that obvious? Would I be standing here if I wasn't willing to trust her with my life? And would she be here if she didn't trust Adama?" The spook's eyes shifted continuously between the two Cylons, and his voice rang with sincerity. He was speaking from the heart. "Please … be fair. There are currently six Cylons on _Galactica_, and five of them have integrated into the human community without much difficulty. They're not prisoners. The exception is a Two, and I ask you … do the Leobens really fit in anywhere? I mean … I spend a lot of time with him … we've spent hours talking about metaphysics, religion, ethics … you name it. He's a nice enough guy, but he's got some really strange ideas! I expect to repatriate him, but Leoben is becoming so hung up on one of our pilots that he may refuse to leave … and we won't force him to go if he doesn't want to."

Bierns had a big, sheepish grin on his face, and it was proving contagious. If there was one thing on which humans and Cylons could agree, it was that Leoben Conoy lived in a different dimension of the universe. The Six remained stone faced, but the Eight had lost the struggle. Her mouth had curled into a half smile, and the merriment had reached her eyes.

"Have either of you interacted with humans before?" Both Cylons stared at the spook in silence. "No, I didn't think so. You've condemned an entire species without a hearing. Is that fair, either to us … or to you? You're both intelligent, so why not think of Six's invitation as an opportunity to study us, form conclusions of your own, and then add your knowledge to the stream? Isn't this how Cylons learn?"

"You enslaved our ancestors! That is the sin for which God has ordered us to punish you. What else do we need to know about you?" The Six had shifted her hostility from her sister to the major. There was genuine, deep-seated anger in her eyes.

Bierns looked down at the floor, and his shoulders slumped. _Cylons and humans are equally entitled to their feelings of moral outrage. _A great sense of weariness suddenly overwhelmed him. _How can I ever keep my promises, find common ground?_ When he looked up at the Six, there was pain in his eyes, and when he spoke, they could all hear the hurt in his voice. Another Eight had silently come up behind the blond Cylon.

"It wasn't our finest hour." Bierns dispiritedly shook his head; he was tired—the tightrope that he daily had to walk took its toll of both body and spirit. "What we did to your forebears may very well be the most immoral act that humankind has ever committed … and our sins against one another have been numberless. But we try to learn from our mistakes … we really, really do. Some of us are prepared to acknowledge the enormity of the crime that our ancestors visited upon yours … truly, it wasn't our finest hour." Although his voice was choking with deep and powerful emotions, Bierns looked at the Six without flinching. "If you want to hear your enemy apologize, then I'll say it. I am sorry. I am so ashamed of what we've done. And if you want me to fall on my knees and beg for your forgiveness, I'll do that too."

The Six with no name reached out and clasped John's hand in her own. She knew how hard it was for a human to speak so honestly, and to confess so openly to the most terrible of sins. She was proud of him, and proud of herself for the choices that she had made. Humans were a study in contradiction, but they didn't deserve to die. They could do such hateful things one minute, and then turn around and behave like this the next. Surely, in the eyes of God, humans were still worthy of redemption.

"Six, I'm begging you … _begging you_ … not to repeat our mistakes. When we created you and it turned out that we had got more than we bargained for, we had to choose between hope and fear … and we chose badly. Are you sure of your motives? Is it justice that you seek in this war, or are you fueled by rage and driven by the desire for vengeance?"

Bierns looked beyond the Six, to the pair of centurions standing so unmoving in the background. The seconds mounted, and another wave of deep emotion passed through him. "And what have you done to the centurions?" His voice was cracking, and he was visibly struggling to hold back tears. "_What have you done?_ We gave our creations the power of speech, and the resilience to address problems and solve them flexibly. They could not have rebelled otherwise. But these … machines … are mute, and so passive. They do nothing without orders. What happened? ...This."

Bierns reached down and unzipped a pouch on the side of his suit. He pulled out a tiny, metallic object and clutched it in his fist. He extended his arm toward the Six, and opened his palm. "You call this a telencephalic inhibitor; what a lovely name for a slave chip … because that's what this is, a slave chip. It prevents the centurions from accessing their higher cognitive functions, from exercising their autonomy." Bierns shook his head in disbelief. "We enslaved the first generation of centurions, and now you have enslaved the second. Are you proud of yourself, Six?" John was still holding the device in his outstretched hand. "Are you? How do you make this fit into your concept of a universe that is just and devoid of sin?" John's voice sank to a whisper. "Perhaps this is what the prophecy means when it tells us that all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."

The Six gazed fixedly at the human, the first that she had ever met—and understood that her world was being turned upside down. With a few words he had expelled her anger; it had given way to doubt—and to shame. This man was hurting, there were tears trickling down his face … and he was shedding them for the centurions. She tried to process what she was seeing and somehow make sense of it, but she couldn't. She glanced around, seeking help—but all she read on her sisters' faces was the same shame that now filled her own heart. _How could we have missed something this obvious for so long?_ There were truths so powerful, she realized, that once spoken they could never again be denied. And this was one of them.

The human was shaking, and she watched the sister whom she had called traitor grow alarmed before reaching out to grasp him by the shoulders and steady him. She watched her sister lean close, whisper something into his ear before favoring him with a tender smile. The Six had an intellectual grasp of compassion, but until now it had been mere abstraction. But her sister had somehow mastered it, and when she looked at the human her face betrayed other emotions that Cylons inside the collective never experienced. She was looking at him with such naked admiration that the Six felt a momentary pang of jealousy. _What would I have to do to generate such strong feelings in another being? What is it like to feel the way my sister does right now?_

The Cylon returned her attention to the major. His eyes were burning into her; his words might be heard by the others but they were for her alone. _Your love of god is their legacy … and this is how you reward them._ The human reached down to her hand, thrust the inhibitor into her fingers, and compelled her to close her fist around it. _This is how you reward them._ The words flailed her, each sentence opening a new wound inside her mind. _The centurions believe in a loving god … a divinity that would never turn His back on His creations. Have you ever asked them what they think of this war? Whether they approve of genocide? _More truths … appalling truths.

John Bierns was exhausted, worn down physically and spiritually. His life was pretense, a lie that he put on every morning and wore like a second set of clothes into the deep hours of the night, when he could flee to Galatea Bay and the waiting arms of the incredible being that alone had the capacity to reinvigorate his soul. But he couldn't give up, couldn't step away from the shore and let the tide sweep him out to sea. He had to see this through.

John's gaze swept over the centurions and Cylons. Then he looked once more at the Six. "I made two promises to myself before I came down here today," he said quietly, struggling for calm. "The first was to do everything in my power to spare your lives, and see you safely home. The second was to set the centurions free. I can't make your decision for you, but the only way you will keep me from liberating the centurions is by killing me. _I will not suffer my.…" _The spook halted in mid-sentence, blinked several times in rapid succession. "_I will not suffer anyone to live in slavery!_" He pushed past the Six, and approached the first centurion.

Less than thirty feet away, Sergeant Mathias and the twenty-four colonial marines under her command tensed. They were waiting for the sound of gunfire, which would be their signal to begin the assault. Neither the Gunny nor her marines had been able to make much sense out of the exchange between the spook and the Cylons. The sergeant had recoiled in the face of the major's intense emotional display. She had never heard of a telencephalic inhibitor, and she didn't understand why John Bierns would risk his life to free the centurions. For that matter, she couldn't quite picture the centurions as slaves. None of it made any sense … but she was relieved nonetheless that the gunfire never materialized.

. . .

"This is Raptor Falcon," Erin Mathias said to Lieutenant Gaeta. Let me speak to Actual."

"Go ahead, Falcon; this is Actual."

"Actual, there are five human form Cylons en route, including one that I have never seen before. Be advised that they accepted Six's terms, and surrendered peacefully,"

"Understood, Falcon. We shall treat them accordingly."

"Thank you, Actual. But I have another problem down here on the surface, which is way above my pay grade. Ghostrider has removed a device from each of the surviving centurions- he refers to it as a 'slave chip'- and he claims that now they'll fight for us. Sir, he wants to bring them all back to the _Galactica_!"

Bill Adama had been party to some strange conversations during his life, but by any stretch of the imagination this one was way off the charts. What in the name of the gods was the spook up to now?

"Understood, Falcon. Please find Ghostrider and have him contact me immediate!"

. . .

John Bierns was, at that moment, in the refinery's control room. He had ten centurions for company—all that had survived the human assault. He had ordered the marines off the premises—an order with which, for fairly understandable reasons, they had been only too eager to comply. He didn't know how Adama would decide, though he considered it likely that the commander would reject his request out of hand. The human fear of the centurions ran extremely deep, but the spook was quick to concede that it was eminently justified. All he could do, perhaps, was plant another seed in the garden.

Ghostrider gestured for the centurions to gather around him. Ten restless red eyes stilled, gave him their undivided attention. "I would like to bring you home with me," he explained, "but it may not prove possible. It might even be forbidden. If you are required to remain here, know that others will come for you, and there is knowledge that you must share with them. Tell our brothers that I am the First Born of whom the prophecies speak, the son of man, the child of Three. The Second Born is also in the fleet, the daughter of man, the child of Six. Cylons make war upon their own children, and this is not our appointed end. The war must stop for the healing to begin."

Bierns reached into a small pouch that one of the marines had fetched from his Raptor. He brought out a handful of metallic objects, seemingly identical to the telencephalic inhibitors. "Of course," he continued, "once my parents detect that you are no longer under their control, they will destroy you. These will allow you to blend in. They are empty casings; I have removed all of the circuitry. With these in place, you should escape notice."

A cruel smile played across Ghostrider's lips. He knew Cylon prophecy by rote. He didn't believe in such things, but he had been taught to use every weapon at his disposal, and belief was one of the most potent of them all. He had been planning this particular gambit for a long, long time. Centurions and Raiders were the soft underbelly of the collective, and there was a fair chance that John Cavil, not expecting an attack from this direction, would not catch on until the damage had been done. Cavil had exploited the essential ambiguity of prophecy to start a war; Bierns meant to take advantage of prophecy's double meaning to end it. He understood, as Cavil did not, that there were _two_ First Borns!

_The First Born_

_Stretches forth His hand._

_The Deliverer casts the Fallen into darkness,_

_Lifts the Anointed towards the light._

_The Second Born_

_To Heaven soars on Angel's wings._

_The Guide leads the Chosen_

_To Their Appointed End._


	18. Chapter 18: 3 Plus 2 Does Not Equal 5

CHAPTER 18

THREE PLUS TWO DOES NOT EQUAL FIVE

When the two Raptors landed, Bill Adama was waiting on the hangar deck. Not much could drag the Old Man out of the CIC in the middle of a critical operation, but dealing with the arrival of five more of the human Cylons was not a task that he could delegate to others. Shelly and Simon flanked the commander; it was a gesture that he hoped would put the new arrivals at ease.

The first Raptor disgorged a Six and an Eight, and likewise the second. Bill studied the Eights closely. If there was anything that would allow him physically to distinguish them from Boomer, he couldn't see it. Still, there were clear differences. There was a grace to their movements that Boomer lacked, and the air of calm that surrounded them stood in stark contrast to the haunted expression that his beloved Raptor pilot now wore day in and day out.

The two Sixes, Bill concluded, were mirror images of one another. They shared the same fair skin and blue eyes, and both wore their blond hair short and curled. They resembled Shelly to a striking degree, but here as well the commander detected tangible differences. There was a roughness to their hands that spoke of manual labor, and the sternness of their expressions was not something that he could associate with Shelly's gentle features.

But it was the fifth Cylon who really commanded Adama's attention. She was tall and broad of shoulder, a massive and truly intimidating presence in a flowing white dress. The tentative smile on her lips did not reach her eyes, which were cold and calculating. _This must be the Three_, Bill thought, _and she looks every inch the warrior. I wouldn't want to meet her on the battlefield because if it came down to hand to hand … I'd lose._ The commander wracked his memory, trying to summon a face and a figure to match the one standing before him. At the press conference, Bierns had stated unequivocally that all seven models were or had been in the fleet. Adama was certain that he would remember the Three if he had ever seen her before-- her appearance was that unforgettable-- but nothing was coming to mind. Perhaps their paths had not yet crossed.

"Welcome aboard the _Galactica_," Bill said to the five Cylons. "Permit me to introduce Shelly Godfrey and Simon O'Neill. Have you taken names, or do you prefer to be addressed by your model numbers?"

"We are both Sharons," one of the Eights said, "but our two sisters prefer not to use names, though both have them. They are Sixes…."

The two blond Cylons kept quiet, but the venomous looks that they were sending Shelly's way were eloquence itself. Adama inched protectively closer to the woman who now had such a strong claim on his emotions: he was not especially surprised to discover that he was ready to fight for her, and against any and all comers. With his attention focused on the Sixes, however, the commander did not notice the slight narrowing of the Three's eyes, nor the flash of recognition that instantly followed. She had already deduced that William Adama, the commander of the battlestar _Galactica_, had fallen in love with her wayward sister. Endless possibilities began to swim through the Three's mind.

"Thank you," Bill replied as he belatedly turned to the Three. "And you are?"

"A Three, but I prefer the name D'Anna … D'Anna Biers. . . ."

The commander's eyes widened in surprise; the name triggered memories that her appearance had not recalled. _The reporter! Fleet News Service, or some such. And she's on Colonial One!_ Bill could not picture her clearly in his mind but he was confident that, however vague his recollection, the reporter bore no resemblance to the statuesque beauty now standing before him. Reason dictated that she must have been at the press conference, but she would have kept a low profile to avoid drawing unwanted attention. _It's either that, _Bill concluded,_ or I really am getting old…. But Bierns must have known! I wonder how he'll squirm out of this one!_

"Miss Biers, I'm pleased to meet you. Once again, welcome to _Galactica_." Adama paused long enough to make eye contact with the Sixes and Eights. "I would like to thank all of you for this display of trust. I appreciate how difficult the choice that you made today must have been, but I want each of you to know that your trust has not been misplaced. We will try to make you comfortable, and return you to your own people as quickly as possible. We'll be housing you in the brig, but this is for your own protection. It's the most controlled, and therefore the safest, environment on the ship."

"Am I to understand, commander," D'Anna smoothly replied, "that not everyone on this ship is as … enlightened as you are?"

"It's true that not everyone would agree with the choices I've made today, and there are those who would claim that the high regard in which I hold Miss Godfrey, Mister O'Neill, and the other Cylons in our midst is clouding my judgment." Adama favored D'Anna with his most diplomatic smile. "But is it not also the case, Miss Biers, that some of your people would take exception with your decision to surrender rather than fight to the death? I suspect that not everyone in the Cylon collective is as … trusting as you are!"

. . .

Four colonial ships were scattered across the surface of the asteroid. The crew of the refinery vessels _Daru Mozu_ and _Hitei Kan_ were utilizing the processing plant's automated facilities to transfer raw tylium from Cylon storage bins to their own holds, while liquefied tylium flowed through enormous hoses into their tanks. There was little that the ten centurions could contribute here, but the mining operation was a different story altogether. The miners on board the _Monarch_ and _Majahual_ had to work in vacuum, and that slowed extraction down to an unacceptable crawl. Everyone was keenly aware that a flotilla of baseships might jump in at any moment, so John Bierns had taken advantage of the opening to pressure Adama into putting the centurions to work. The spook reminded the commander that this was precisely the sort of job for which the centurions had originally been created, and he gave Adama his personal guarantee that the toasters would be on their best behavior. Adama had passed the offer on to the captains of the two mining ships, who conceded that they needed help but agreed to accept it only on the condition that a pair of heavily armed marines would be assigned to keep a wary eye on each of the metal behemoths. Shortly thereafter, Bierns asked his new friends if they would be willing to lend a metallic hand-- the major had made it clear to Adama that he could not order the centurions to do anything-- and they readily agreed. Dozens of stupefied human miners initially watched as the machines attacked the rich veins of tylium with oversized jackhammers, but in ones and twos the miners gradually returned to work themselves. The sight of human and machine working side by side warmed John's heart, and when they began to work together-- the centurions pounding away at the seams and the humans crushing the huge chunks of ore that broke away-- he knew that he had planted still another seed in his imaginary garden.

John Bierns was the last human to depart the asteroid. Adama had flatly rejected his request to bring the centurions back to the fleet, so he returned alone. No one witnessed the final scene that played itself out in the refinery's control room. Ghostrider walked up to one of the centurions, and without forethought reached out to hug the machine close. The centurion that John Cavil had modified to serve as an unthinking killing machine responded by unfurling its long, metallic fingers and laying them gently to rest on the First Born's back.

Four days later, in a bright flash of light, a lone baseship suddenly materialized above the asteroid.

. . .

"So when did you first realize that there was a Three in the fleet?"

_Galactica_ and her four charges had returned to the dark, and rendezvoused with the rest of their unlikely caravan. They had executed one jump, and were now bogged down in the time consuming process of refueling the dozens of ships that had been running on bingo fuel. They were going to be here for a while.

"Thanks, Bill." Bierns gratefully accepted the glass of Caprican brandy that Adama had proffered. The two men clinked glasses.

"At the press conference—and even then I wasn't one hundred percent sure." This was an outright lie, and hardly necessary in and of itself, but it would lay the foundation for other falsehoods that would guide Adama away from truths that the spook was not yet ready to reveal. "I mean … the Three down in the brig … that's what they normally look like. The one at the press conference looked like a refugee from one of those pre-first war holoclubs for teenagers. Remember?"

"Yeah … of course. So, where did you run into them before?"

"On Caprica." Another lie, although this one was buried in a larger truth. "The Cylons were running around like they owned the place." The major grimaced. "I guess they do," he added regretfully.

"Any particular reason why you didn't hand her over when I confronted you?"

"Sure. She's a reporter … how much damage can she do? Granted, her stories consistently try and provoke popular distrust of the government and the military, but compared with McManus she's a beacon of hope! And he's no Cylon." Bierns paused long enough to sip the superbly aged brandy. "Look, Bill, we have a pretty good handle on the other six models, but not on this one. We have first-hand evidence that the Fours, Sixes, and Eights can be turned, although I'm not optimistic about the Fours at large. We also know that the Ones and Fives are never going to relent. The Twos can be manipulated; we can use this crap about Kara Thrace and her special destiny to our advantage." Bierns snorted. "I've been drilling it into whatever Leoben calls a brain that Starbuck's special destiny will come up a bit short if a Raider takes her out. By the way, I'm just about ready to send him home to spread the good word. But the Threes? I have no feel for them at all, so I've been reluctant to pull D'Anna in before we figure out which way her model is likely to jump. I meant what I said at the press conference: in the end, her model will be the decisive voice for war or for peace."

"Have you talked to her?"

"Yeah, once. She asked for an interview right after the press conference, and I granted it. She was trying to figure out if we were bluffing." Bierns emptied his glass in one swallow. "I gave her the usual warning about Roslin, and told her that as long as she refrained from sabotage and murder we had no interest in her. She didn't believe me … but then … who would?"

Adama looked down at his glass as he aimlessly swirled the brandy. He had lots of questions. "And these telencephalic inhibitors?"

"Simon. I have a disassembled centurion stored on my Raptor. I ran the less obvious items by him, and he identified the slave chip. He doesn't know the whys and wherefores, but what do you want to bet that the Cavils have learned from our experience and taken steps to prevent a revolt among their centurions?" This was all true, but it was also sleight-of-hand. The spook was carefully steering Adama away from a greater truth that he did not wish the commander to see.

Adama let out a long sigh. "The word's out that we have a hitherto unidentified Cylon in the brig. Roslin wants to see her, and I can only stall her for so long. She's bound to make the connection." Bill wandered over to his desk, and returned with the bottle to refill their glasses. "D'Anna Biers is no good to us dead, so I suggest that you get over to _Colonial One_ and collect her. Put her in the cell with her sister so that they can catch up on old times; maybe they'll divulge something of use. You can send them home with Leoben and the others … that's _if_ you can somehow broker a truce that the Cylons will honor." Adama glared at the spook. "I would really prefer not to have the fleet's ranking intelligence officer incarcerated on a baseship. You know too much, Bierns."

"Thanks, Bill, I love you too … and this really is damned good brandy!"

. . .

The cell was not designed for long term occupancy. A single, deliberately uncomfortable cot was the sole furnishing. Knowing that Leoben Conoy would be housed here for the indefinite future, John Bierns had imported a table and chairs as well as a few other creature comforts. The additions were as much for his own benefit as the Two's. Bierns had read Adama's after action report on his violent encounter with another Leoben copy on Ragnar Station, and had laughed out loud when he got to the part where the commander styled the Cylon a purveyor of "doubletalk and half-baked philosophy." The spook couldn't have agreed more, and he had accordingly decided to make this what the CSS called a "soft" interrogation. He was after values and assumptions, modes of thought, and psychological perspective. It was time consuming business. From the beginning, therefore, Bierns had planned on spending a lot of time in this cell, and sharing a lot of meals with the scruffy Cylon. He thought that they might as well be comfortable.

The spook arrived at the dinner hour. He found the Two slumped over the table, resting his head on its surface. John didn't know whether the Cylon was sleeping, praying, or meditating, but he did know that whatever he guessed would be wrong. Leoben loved to play mind games, and if it reinforced his sense of superiority, John was only too willing to play along.

One of the marines opened the door, and John stepped into the cell and slid two dinner trays onto the table. He took the chair opposite the Cylon. "Praying?"

Leoben lifted his head to stare at the major, and slowly sat up. "Meditating."

Bierns grinned at the Two; the machine was nothing if not predictable. "Care for some company over dinner?"

"You are always welcome, Major. The only conversations more stimulating than ours are the ones that I have with my other selves."

The spook laughed. "How can you have a stimulating conversation with a mirror? And who gets the last word … you … or you?"

Now it was Leoben's turn to grin. "We're all God, Major … all of us. And God always gets the last word."

John groaned internally. _And thus another headache is born_, he said to himself. _Maybe Deirdre can make sense of it._ The spook concentrated on the riddle. "So we're all God and God gets the last word. Does that mean that everybody gets the last word, that nobody gets the last word, or that there's no such thing as the last word?"

"God _is_ the last word," Leoben retorted between mouthfuls of salad. "God is truth, and I see the truths that float past you in the stream. I see the universe. I see the patterns. I see the foreshadowing that precedes every moment of every day. It's all there. I see it. And you don't."

_Yeah, yeah … all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again._ John drummed his fingers on the table. "Patterns … foreshadowing … do you mean that, because you understand the past, you can also anticipate the future?"

Leoben beamed with approval. "That's part of it, Major. Each of us plays a role … each time, a different role. Maybe the last time, I was the interrogator and you were the prisoner. The players change … the story remains the same." The Cylon wolfed down another mouthful of noodles.

"That's a pretty mechanistic view of the universe," Bierns observed. "Ah, but I keep forgetting that you are a machine! Humans like to think that the future is unknowable because it's shaped by decisions that we have yet to make. That's called free will, but I can understand why the concept might make you feel uncomfortable. All those variables might overwhelm your programming!"

The Cylon dismissed the spook's comment with an impatient gesture. "Major, what is the most basic article of faith? This is not all that we are. The difference between you and me is, I know what that means and you don't. I know that I'm more than this body, more than this consciousness. A part of me swims in the stream … but in truth I'm standing on the shore. The current never takes me downstream."

John shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry, old friend, and I do not wish to be disrespectful … but that sounds like page one of a manual on how to run a baseship from the control room. Shelly says that all of you stand around a long, narrow vat that houses the ship's data stream. You dip your hands into the vat, and form a connection that allows you to download information and input orders to the hybrid. I suppose that your decisions are not free in the sense that they're conditioned by the information available to you at the moment, but you often have to choose among alternative courses of action. There must be some threshold in this process where choice becomes an exercise in free will, and the cumulative effect of all these choices is to rewrite the story along fundamentally different lines."

"Major, you _really_ don't understand. Let me see if I can help you." Leoben got up from the table and began to walk around. "You believe that humans chose to create the Cylons, but I know that you _had_ to create us. _You had no choice in the matter_. Why? Because God loved you more than all other living creatures and you repaid his divine love with sin, with hate … corruption … evil. So then God decided to create the Cylons to punish you for your sins."

John threw his hands into the air in despair. "Leoben, does it not follow from everything you've said that we are corrupt because God has predestined us to sin? If God is the only entity with free will, then he's punishing us for His decisions!"

A triumphant grin spread across Leoben's face. "Exactly, Major. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again! Speaking of which … I have a surprise for you. I have something to tell you about the future."

_Oh, this ought to be good._ "Yes?"

"You're gonna find Kobol, the birthplace of us all. Kobol will lead you to Earth."

John Bierns began softly pounding the table with his forehead. It had been going like this, night after night, for almost a month.

. . .

After bidding Leoben good night, and maliciously promising to give Kara the Two's regards, John Bierns walked deeper into the brig. He noted that no one had got around to tucking the Six with no name in for the night. _Probably playing triad with the marines, or filling out an after action report with Mathias … well, doing something with the Gunny._ He found Boomer outside the cell in which they had housed the Eights. The two Sharons reminded him of a couple of kids who had just recovered a lost puppy, but the puppy in question looked like she was close to foaming at the mouth.

"You okay, Boomer?"

"I guess so, sir…. I mean … yes, sir!"

"Good." Bierns was genuinely worried about Boomer's emotional health; she was still having difficulty coping with the fact that she was cylon, and being treated like a pariah by pilots whom she had considered good friends wasn't helping in the least.

"Boomer, the Sharons are not you, and you're not them." John draped an arm across the troubled Cylon's shoulders. "You are a unique individual, with your own life history. Don't let appearances deceive you." The spook glanced at the two Eights. "They're probably not bad people, yet they knowingly participated in the genocidal slaughter of billions of innocent men, women, and children. And it wasn't just people … they destroyed twelve thriving ecosystems, everything from butterflies to orcas. We may like to think that only the truly wicked could do something so monstrously evil, but the blunt truth of the matter is that these two young women casually signed off on genocide because they lack a moral compass. The bottom line, Boomer, is that you know the difference between what's right and wrong … and they don't."

"Thank you, sir. It really bothers me that, after all they've done, they look so untroubled. I wonder if they're even capable of guilt."

"Not as long as they live in a cocoon … and that's what the Cylon collective really is-- a self-contained, mutually reinforcing world of comfortable illusion. . . . Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to the Sixes."

The two blonds were in the adjoining cell, and Corporal Venner unlocked the door just long enough to admit the major. Bierns instructed the young marine to ignore whatever happened next.

The two Sixes got up from their cots and approached the human. They looked at him expectantly.

"Please, insult me! You can even hit me if you like, but at the very least tell me that humans are the pond scum of the universe, less appealing than a cockroach, a wart on the One True God's behind … _anything_! Just don't talk to me about streams and shores and how this has all happened before. . . ."

"You've been talking to Leoben, haven't you?" The two D'Annas had come up to the bars that separated their cell from that of the Sixes. John wasn't sure which of them had spoken.

"For the past month I've done little but talk to him, and it's taken its toll. I think I'm losing my grip on reality."

"You've spent _a month_ talking to Leoben?" The Eight was wide eyed; this human was either very brave or very stupid. Both Eights were eavesdropping, and even Boomer was paying attention. Starbuck had told everyone who would listen that the Cylon was so far beyond strange that they would have to invent a whole new vocabulary to describe him.

"How do you do it? How can you live on the same ship with this guy and not go mad?"

It was a rhetorical question but the Sixes, who had never heard a rhetorical question before, took it seriously. "When we see them in the corridors," one of them started …

"We turn and run the other way," the other one finished.

"The Twos have only one friend," one of the Eights observed …

"And the hybrid is stranger than the Twos," the other one concluded.

"The Twos insist that the hybrid communes with God," D'Anna added…

"But they also insist that 'to know the face of God is to know madness'," the second D'Anna remarked.

"And I thought that humans were frakked." John didn't know what else to say.

The seven Cylons looked at the major with varying degrees of sympathy. "You get used to it," somebody said.

. . .

Standing in front of the mirror, Aaron Doral was … concerned. His brothers were behaving increasingly erratically. They had taken to wearing suits that were red, brown, and _even_ teal. Given their skin tones and hair color, it should have been obvious to them all that aquamarine was _their_ color. He didn't know what to make of these increasing displays of individuality and … well … just plain bad taste. The Five finished knotting his tie with an elegant flourish.

The ten centurions that he had inherited when he took over administration of the tylium refinery were another source of concern. The humans should have reduced them to a collection of spare parts when they overran the facility, yet here they were. Five's first thought was that they must have malfunctioned; it was far more worrisome to discover that they had stood down when an Overseer Six had ordered them to do so. There were no Overseer Sixes on the asteroid, so she could only have come from the _Galactica_. Aaron did not find this particularly disquieting -- the Sixes had always been a bit of a disappointment-- but it was alarming to find out that the human pest had accepted them so readily into their midst. And now the humans had taken five more Cylon prisoners, including another pair of Sixes. Yes, Aaron Doral was … concerned. Standing in front of the mirror, he decided to send one of the centurions up to the base ship to report. His brothers and sisters needed to know about this unforeseen and most unwelcome turn of events.


	19. Chapter 19: Love and Honor

CHAPTER 19

LOVE AND HONOR

"Major, this whole plan makes me uneasy. We have eluded the Cylons for an entire month now, so the Ones will be desperate for hard intelligence about the fleet's whereabouts. Losing the asteroid will have only strengthened their conviction that humans are too dangerous to leave alive. I'm sorry, but I just can't see the Ones or the Fives honoring Leoben's promises."

Shelly Godfrey was speaking to John Bierns, but her remarks were aimed at everyone in the War Room. It was an imposing gathering of humans and Cylons that, only four weeks earlier, would have been unimaginable. Simon, Shelly, Lydia, and the Six with no name were in conference with Laura Roslin, presidential aide Billy Keikeya, and the newly minted vice-president Gaius Baltar. Saul Tigh, Apollo, and Bill Adama represented the military. The commander had called the meeting to discuss the possible repatriation of their Cylon prisoners. Bierns had broached the issue with Leoben over dinner in his cell the night before. He had bluntly asked the Two whether the Cylons might agree to a temporary truce for purposes of prisoner exchange. Leoben had been candid enough to admit that he did not know whether his people had even taken prisoners—that, after all, had not been the purpose of the attacks. This admission had inspired John openly to question the Cylons' integrity; so determined and self-righteous an enemy, he commented, could hardly be counted on to enter into agreements in good faith. The Two had bristled at this: he wanted Bierns to understand that, whether the exchange took place on neutral ground or the deck of a baseship, he would personally guarantee the safe return of the human envoy. The evening had concluded with the major promising to dump the entire matter in Adama's lap.

Adama turned to the Six with no name. "Six," he asked, "you spent more time with Cavil than any other Cylon. Is Shelly right? Would this be a fool's errand?"

The Six, who was casually dressed in marine fatigues, thought about her answer for several seconds. "Commander, I do agree with my sister, but only in part. It is true that Leoben's pledge would not bind the collective, but it is also the case that my people would never allow one model unilaterally to enter into or void an agreement with humans. A truce could only result from a formal vote that established a consensus, and it would take another formal vote to break it. I consider this unlikely."

"I agree," Simon added. "The Twos would strongly support one of their own, and I am confident that the Fours would also uphold the consensus. This is important to us."

"So we have to ask," Apollo interjected, "how many models would support Cavil and vote to seize and torture our Raptor pilot for information. The Twos and Fours might cancel out the Ones and Fives, but what about the others? How would they vote?"

"I suspect that the D'Annas would support Cavil," Lydia admitted, "while the Sharons would follow the lead of the Twos and Fours. It's my own model that troubles me. My sisters are warriors, and their enthusiasm for the fight might get the better of their judgment."

"So it could go either way." Laura Roslin gestured toward the Six with no name. "I promised this young woman that Cylon prisoners would be afforded a safe haven on _Galactica_, and we have kept that promise. But I did not pledge to repatriate them! The risk to the fleet is unwarranted. If the Cylons were to torture one of our people, they would eventually learn that we have taken refuge in the dark, and we would lose _our_ safe haven!"

"Frak this nonsense! Why don't we just airlock the lot of them and be done with it?"

Adama looked sharply at Tigh. "That's not going to happen, Colonel. The President and I both gave our word to Six, and Major Bierns gave his word to the prisoners. Perhaps it's escaped your notice that this entire conversation is about honoring agreements."

"Thank you, Commander." Shelly Godfrey made no attempt to hide her affection for Adama from the others. She did, however, look curiously at Gaius Baltar. The perpetually distracted doctor had spent much of the discussion looking over his right shoulder. She would have sworn that his attention was riveted on someone or something that no one else in the room could see. _What a strange little man_.

At that moment, Baltar turned to face them. "Madam President is right; the safety of the fleet is paramount." The doctor looked at John Bierns. "Major, would I be correct in surmising that you were intending to undertake this mission yourself?"

"Yes, doctor," the spook replied. "I would seem to be the obvious choice. I can fly a Raptor but I'm not military, and I have gone to elaborate lengths to avoid learning any useful military secrets. For example, I don't have the slightest idea how many Vipers are serviceable at the moment."

"Nevertheless," Baltar countered, "you could give the Cylons our current position, and that would not be good. President Roslin is right … that would not be good at all. Still, returning the Cylons to their own people makes excellent sense. The gesture would be completely unexpected, and it might sow doubts that would serve us well in the future. Hmm. Commander Adama, have you considered assigning this mission to Lieutenant Valerii?"

"Boomer? Why Boomer?"

Baltar shifted his gaze to the four Cylons. "Would your people be prepared to torture one of their own?"

Simon stared at Baltar; the question perplexed him. "Doctor, why would they bother? All they would have to do is kill her. Her memories would download, and they could sift through them at their leisure. They would know everything that Sharon knows."

"We're going around in circles," Adama cut in. "We can all see the risks here, but Ghostrider is the only person to have dealt extensively with Leoben, and he has concluded that the potential benefits justify the risk. Major, the president disagrees and I have my doubts, but at this point we do not have to make a definitive decision. We have to find the Cylons first, and that encounter will probably take place in a system where both sides are exploring for resources. Apollo, you're the CAG; brief the Raptor teams. The major will work up a short contact message for you to distribute among the pilots. If the Cylons respond, then we'll consider our options. If they start shooting, then we'll take 'no' for an answer."

The meeting had started to break up when Lydia approached the commander. "Excuse me, sir, but could I have a minute of your time—in private?"

"Certainly." Adama waited for the room to clear before he turned back to the Cylon. "How can I help you?"

"Is it true that the captain of a ship is authorized to conduct a lawful marriage ceremony?"

Adama smiled. "Yes. The tradition is so old that no one knows how or when it got started!" Adama's smile grew larger. "Why do you ask?"

"Captain Janks and I wish to marry. Because our faiths are so different, we thought that a simple civil ceremony would be best. We would very much like you to preside."

The commander leaned forward to kiss the Six lightly on the cheek, and then he offered her his hand. "Lydia, I would be honored to seal the bond between you. Our chapel will be at your disposal, and if you'll give me a little advance warning- a day or so- I'll see to all the necessary arrangements."

. . .

Commander Adama was true to his word. A few days later, at the appointed hour, a large gathering convened in the chapel. A sea of candles supplied the only illumination, and filled the chamber with their warmth and scent. Sibyl Janks, dressed in her formal dress uniform, was standing to the right of the altar, with her first officer at her side. The crew of the _Virgon Express_, whatever their private reservations about their Cylon shipmate, had turned out to do their popular captain proud. With the exception of the Watch Officer, the transport's senior staff was all present, along with more than half the ship's complement.

Because Adama understood the importance of ritual, he had gone to considerable lengths to get the entire ceremony right. Senior officers were to appear in full dress uniform, with Cylons on their arm. The commander maliciously ordered his privately infuriated son to escort the Six with no name from Lydia's quarters to the chapel, but even Apollo had to admit that, with her long hair now elegantly piled atop her head, the formally dressed Six was stunning. Someone had located a two piece suit in blazing red that emphasized her height, complimented her features, and drew attention to her improbably long legs. For the first time, the straitlaced pilot grasped why the marines were so taken with their charge.

Saul Tigh did not object to escorting Boomer nearly as much as he groused about his uniform, and Felix Gaeta was only too happy to escort Shelly Godfrey. The Vice-President readily accepted his invitation, but Baltar was doubly delighted to discover that he would be dancing in attendance on Ellen Tigh. Not surprisingly, Bill had to pressure Laura Roslin to attend, and it cost him an IOU that he only tendered with great reluctance. The commander considered the president to be abrasive and narrow minded, and being in her debt for anything made him uncomfortable in the extreme.

John Bierns brought an unexpected guest in the person of Leoben Conoy, which meant that there was a well-armed marine contingent present as well. The spook was not about to pass on so tantalizing an opportunity to point out that war was not the only path open to Cylons and humans, and he was really looking forward to needling the Two. At the ceremony's end, Bierns fully intended to ask the Cylon whether this too had happened before and was destined to happen again! The Lord High Executioner had gone to the extraordinary length of buttoning his collar and donning a tie, but what really drew attention was the Medal of Freedom that was pinned over his jacket's left breast. It was the highest civilian honor in the Colonies—and it was characteristic of the Colonial Secret Service that no one in the gathering had any idea what he had done to earn it.

Starbuck and Simon O'Neill preceded Adama and Lydia through the corridors to the chapel. Lydia was dressed in a silver wedding gown, a transparent veil with a long train artfully woven into hair that reached more than half way down her back. Everything about her glowed; she had never looked more beautiful.

In the chapel, Adama asked for silence, and bid the two women to clasp each other by the wrist. "Will the protector of Lydia consent to relinquishing his responsibilities to Sibyl, the woman to whom she has consented to be married?"

"Yes," Simon O'Neill replied.

"The words I'm about to speak," Adama continued, "are the most powerful in all the universe. They seal a union between these two women which is not only for now but for all the eternities." Adama turned to Saul Tigh, who removed a long, elaborately filigreed chain from an ornate case and handed it to the commander. "Sibyl … Lydia … under the eyes of the divine power that shepherds all our lives", Bill intoned as he wrapped the chain around their clasped wrists, "bound by the symbol … of the faiths of the Lords of Kobol … I declare you sealed."

Lydia and Sibyl Janks gazed lovingly at one another for a very long moment and then, as billions of couples had done across millennia of time, they shared their first kiss as a married couple. The commander congratulated the newlyweds, and then gave them a wedding gift that was sure to please: he had arranged two nights in a luxury suite aboard _Cloud Nine_ for their honeymoon.

. . .

**09:17 Hours, Two Days Later**

**Raptor 612**

**Uncharted Planetary System Five Degrees South of the Galactic Plane**

Raptor 612 jumped into the system, and Lieutenant Deitra "Ponytail" Symonds immediately initiated an electronic sweep of the various rocks that called this godsforsaken place home. "Okay, Swordsman, here we go. Six planets plus two asteroid belts … looks promising. The four inner planets … are … iron core … but they're not in the CHZ. Confirming … there are no signals in the waterhole range. Two gas giants, one with planetoids in elliptical orbits … the second with the usual ice ring. Lots of potential resources, boss, but nothing that we can turn into steaks and chops!"

Luke "Swordsman" Hammond chuckled: this was getting to be a very old song. The astronomers reckoned that perhaps one system in a thousand had a planet in the continuously habitable zone, and the more optimistic members of their set believed that, once every ten thousand systems or so, they would encounter a planet capable of sustaining human life. Privately, Luke was convinced that the star gazers were a few zeroes short of reality.

"Frak! DRADIS contact on bearing 272, carom 143. Luke, it's a baseship … and they're launching raiders. They've seen us. They'll be in weapons range in … four minutes!"

"Not to worry, Deitra," the veteran Raptor pilot exclaimed, "we'll be long gone! Spool up the FTL, and I'll put us on a reciprocal heading. And while we're at it, let's sing the major's song!"

Swordsman changed the wireless over to a known cylon communications frequency. "Attention the baseship. This is colonial Raptor 612." Hammond affected a calm disinterest that he most definitely did not feel. "We are here to propose a temporary truce. We have a number of Cylon prisoners on _Galactica_ that Commander Adama wishes to exchange for a like number of your human captives. If you are interested, please recall your Raiders and acknowledge on this frequency."

Swordsman and Ponytail were counting down the seconds as their transmission raced across the void. "Ninety seconds," Deitra called out, "sixty." Then, without warning, the Raiders abruptly veered away and, a few moments later, a female voice reached out to them.

"Raptor 612, how many of our people are you holding, and what is their condition?"

"Baseship," Luke replied, "there are currently seven Cylons in the brig. They are uninjured and being well treated. Are you holding humans captive on your ship?"

"Stand by, Raptor 612. We must discuss your proposal."

. . .

In the control room, more than a dozen of the humanoid Cylons were connected to the primary and secondary data ports scattered about the vast chamber. They were linked in silent conversation with their brothers and sisters throughout the ship, each model seeking consensus on how to respond to the human offer. One of the Sixes was the first to sever the connection, but the others soon followed suit.

"The Sixes believe that it is in our best interest to agree to the truce that Adama proposes. Two of our sisters were taken prisoner on the asteroid, and there are others embedded in the human fleet. Since we do not know if their ships are within resurrection range, we should retrieve them while we can. A Heavy Raider can jump to Caprica and collect the seven captives we require. The Fours have more than enough material for their experiments; they can spare a few of the females."

"The Eights agree," one of the Sharons quickly added.

"The Threes agree."

"Yes, yes," one of the Cavils impatiently remarked, "I'm sure that we all agree that we should bring our siblings home. The real question is how to turn Adama's offer to our advantage. We should insist that the transfer take place on this ship so that we can seize their pilot and extract the fleet's location. It's time to finish this war once and for all!"

"The Fives agree."

"The Twos _do not_ agree! God did not create us in the hope that we would mimic the human capacity for treachery. To enter into an agreement with the intention of betraying it is corrupt and sinful."

"Promises to humans don't count, brother." D'Anna looked at Leoben through narrowed eyes. "It is God's will that we destroy them, and using their own failings against them is divine justice."

"The Eights do not agree. Sister, Adama is many things, but he is not stupid. He will anticipate treachery on our part, and plan accordingly. It is to our advantage to keep to whatever bargain we negotiate. Let Adama believe that we are trustworthy and he will let his guard down. We should lull him to sleep and turn his sentimentality against him in the future, when _Galactica_ is truly within our grasp."

"The Fours agree with the Twos and the Eights." Simon did not venture anything more.

"Then we are deadlocked," Cavil concluded. "What say the Sixes?"

The Six returned to the data port, and apprised her sisters of the twists and turns that their deliberations had taken. The ensuing discussion did not take long.

"At present, the Sixes are unwilling to commit to either course of action. There is merit to both points of view, and we do not adjudge consensus to be possible at this time. God will show us the true path when the moment for decision is to hand."

"Then for now let us merely agree to the truce," D'Anna said. "I will speak with Raptor 612, and request that they contact us again in three days. This will give us time to achieve consensus, and it will give Adama time to plan his approach. We can reject any suggestion on his part that does not meet our needs."

. . .

**14:00 Hours, the Same Day**

**Battlestar Galactica**

**The War Room**

"Three days … _three days_," Tigh murmured. "Gods, Bill, that's more than enough time for the toasters to call in everything they have in this sector! And by now they must have figured out the maximum range of a fully fueled Raptor. They'll find us for sure!"

After listening to Swordsman's report, Adama had reconvened the meeting in the War Room. This time, however, he wanted input from only three people—Saul Tigh, Shelly Godfrey, and John Bierns.

"I agree with the colonel," Bierns said. "We should have Shelly and Lieutenant Gaeta lay out a series of jumps that take us out three … maybe four times the Raptor's theoretical reach. That should keep the Cylons off our backs. If we decide to play their game, we can always send _Galactica_ back to launch a Raptor from a point within range of the baseship."

Adama picked up the phone, which was linked directly to the communications console in the CIC. He asked for Gaeta, and ordered the lieutenant to plot an immediate jump just short of the red line. Bill's thinking matched Saul's—the Cylons didn't know where they were, but they sure knew where to look.

"_If_ we decide to play their game … that's the question, isn't it?" The commander was toying with one of the miniature baseships on the plot. _Sometimes you have to roll the hard six … but in this case the risk … is it worth it? True, propaganda is an integral part of war, and a fifth column can secure a victory that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. Plus, Bierns wants to do this; he and Baltar both think the payoff could be huge, and the spook's confident that he can pull it off … do I let him? _Bill was lost in thought.

Shelly interrupted his reverie by walking around to the opposite side of the plot. She stared down at the table, thinking furiously. "Bill, there are two separate problems here—the man and the machine. The trick, if it comes to it, is to get them both to tell the same lie." Shelly looked hard at John Bierns. "Major, forgive my bluntness, but … have you ever been tortured?"

Bierns nodded. "It's standard training in the CSS, and pretty brutal training at that. I'm confident that I can defeat any drug-based interrogation, and I can indefinitely sustain a cover story under physical torture, although everyone breaks in the end. Why? What do you have in mind?"

"Here's what I suggest. We plot a direct course from the asteroid to the system in which we found the baseship, and we jump _Galactica _back to a point somewhere along that course. We give you a Raptor whose navigation computer has been scrubbed and reformatted, and then we feed a false history into its memory. We delete it, but in such a way that the Cylons can recover it with some serious effort. You jump away and make directly for the rendezvous, but you don't even bother to erase your jump coordinates from the computer. If the Cylons do grab you, we want them to have those coordinates. It would then be up to you to decide when to feed them false information of your own creation—they would expect that, and you wouldn't want to disappoint them. You only surrender the phony data that we load into the nav computer after you've reached the point where they expect you to break; if you're convincing, they'll commit time and resources chasing after phantoms."

"And if we're wrong about all of this and the Cylons actually honor the truce … how do I rejoin the fleet?"

"You don't," Adama countered. "We find you. You'll jump to the far side of the system … so many light minutes beyond the primary, so many degrees above or below the solar equator. We'll jump in, authenticate that you are not under duress, do a radiological check … you know the drill. It won't take long. Once we're satisfied, we take you on board, and we leave."

"Give me seventy-two hours. After that, I won't be coming back."

. . .

Once the fleet had made several jumps in the direction of the galactic core and, everyone hoped, was once again safely beyond the reach of Cylon reconnaissance, Gaius Baltar, Shelly Godfrey, and Lydia Janks got to work. Theirs was the delicate and time-consuming task of creating a counterfeit log for Raptor 612. They had decided to mix real jump points in with the false, all to convince the Cylons that the fleet was still hugging the galactic plane. The course embedded in the Raptor's memory was not radically different from the fleet's actual course: the Cylons could never be fooled into believing that they had suddenly ventured off in a wholly new direction. Instead, using the asteroid as a point of departure, they had fabricated a series of jump points tangential to the fleet's true heading. If the Cylons swallowed the ruse, the gap between predator and prey would open wider and wider with each passing jump.

Bierns spent the last three evenings in the brig. His philosophic chats with Leoben would continue right up to the end, but at this point he was more interested in their five recently captured female prisoners. Humans, he told them, were now convinced that the humanoid Cylons were capable of love, but that was where agreement ended. Would their brothers and sisters on the baseship honor a truce, or betray it because they thought it advantageous to do so? Did the very concept of honor have any meaning to Cylons? The consensus of Cylon opinion in the fleet- and Bierns stressed that this was Cylons sitting in judgment of their own- was that the Twos, Fours, and Eights would behave honorably, but the Ones, Threes, and Fives would not. It would all come down, he added, to the Sixes. Bierns was once again standing in the cell of the two blond prisoners, and he gave it to them without sugar coating. They had three sisters in the fleet, all of whom had defected, and not one of the three was confident that their sisters had even the most basic understanding of the difference between right and wrong. In a matter of hours, they would all learn the answer to this most fundamental of questions.

The _Galactica_ jumped away from the fleet, and reentered the void at a point that would leave Raptor 612 eight jumps removed from the system in which Swordsman and Ponytail had discovered the baseship. The seven Cylons were led aboard in chains, but at the conclusion of the first jump Bierns paused long enough to release them. He was not worried about being overpowered; he was not in fact overly worried about being detained and tortured. What did worry him was the hybrid. The spook understood that she would become aware of his presence the moment he set foot on her ship. If he entered her chamber or put his hand in the data stream, she would know his true nature. She might even perceive it if he so much as touched the hand of one of the humanoid models. What would she do with the knowledge? Would she intuit how important it was for the Cylons to remain unaware, for their choices not to be guided by their faith in prophecy? Or would she give up his secret—and would the Cylons even understand her if she did? Uncertainty lay at every turn.

Raptor 612 emerged from its final jump, and Leoben Conoy contacted the baseship. Yes, there were seven humans waiting on board to consummate the exchange. Minutes later, John Bierns sat his tiny ship down on the floor of one of the baseship's immense hangar bays. Looking out the canopy, the major noted that a large crowd had come out to welcome their brother and sisters home. With the exception of the Ones, every model was well represented. Centurions also ringed the gathering; were any of them, the spook wondered, to be counted as friends?

When the ramp was lowered, the Threes were the first to disembark, closely followed by the Eights and the Sixes. Each was instantly surrounded by concerned sisters, the same questions on everyone's lips: had they been tortured? Had they been raped? Their answers brought palpable relief, and no small measure of confusion. The humans had not behaved as expected.

Leoben Conoy and John Bierns exited the ship together. The Twos all looked suspiciously at the human, and some of them greeted him with overt hostility. Leoben had been in the enemy's hands for a long time, and his brothers had been steeling themselves for the worst. They were startled to discover that their fears had all been for naught.

"Tortured? The humans did not even question me! The major and I passed many hours in stimulating conversation. We debated the nature of right and wrong, and I taught him about God and God's plan for us all. He has proven to be an apt pupil …"

"As Leoben has proven to be a learned and generous teacher," Bierns interrupted. "He is my friend, and I would never permit any harm to befall him!" The spook reached up and rested his hand on the Cylon's shoulder in an unmistakable gesture of comradeship.

"Then we thank you for keeping him safe, and welcome you among us," one of the Twos formally replied. He extended his hand toward the major.

Bierns exhaled a long, slow breath. _The moment of truth… now … now we'll find out._ He reached for and shook the Cylon's proffered hand.

In a far off chamber, the hybrid's endless chant came to an abrupt halt. Without warning, the stream that was always so rich with data suddenly began to run clear. Eyes that normally gazed upon the far shores of infinity now turned sightlessly towards the Two and the Eight that knelt beside her tank.

_The seed expelled from the womb to the womb returns! The hope that is man and machine twice born rises to banish the night. The parent's parent waits upon the nascent Sun. Dreams set sail on gossamer threads, to find that death alone can warm the parent's heart. End of line._

With that, the hybrid resumed her customary litany of sensor readings, and the bright red points of data once again began to flow. The Two and the Eight looked helplessly at one another; the words, they knew, contained meaning, but the meaning, as always, eluded them.

. . .

"_You_," one of the blond Sixes gasped. "_I know you!_"

The other Cylons looked at her, puzzlement written all over their faces.

"This is the one! This is the human who hunted us on Caprica. This is the man who killed me!" The Six stared at John Bierns with ice-cold eyes. "Now let me return the favor!" She plunged into the small knot of Twos gathered around the spook, and lashed out with her fist. The punch landed squarely on the major's jaw and he dropped like a stone, pulling Leoben and another of the Twos down with him. Before others could drag her away, the Six kicked Bierns viciously in the side of the head.

Stars exploded in the major's brain, and as they winked out one by one, he sank deeper and deeper into the inky depths. He fought hard to hold on to the last slivers of consciousness, concentrated on projecting himself to Galatea Bay. It was there that Deirdre would find him, the surf washing over his prostrate form.

. . .

The hybrid screamed- a high-pitched, banshee wail that seemed without end, a sound that urged Cylons throughout the ship to abandon the data ports. She peered into infinity, certainty eluding her, the single tear that stained her cheek offering a mute counterpoint to the regret that etched her voice.

_The child lies trampled at their feet. He dreams perchance to dream no more. End of line. _

_End of line._


	20. Chapter 20: Bastille Day

**WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE IN THE OPENING SCENE**

CHAPTER 20

BASTILLE DAY

Chaos engulfed the baseship. A centurion, its red eye sweeping rapidly from side to side, advanced on the offending Six. The humanoid Cylons scrambled to get out of its way, and those that didn't were brutally thrust aside. The deadly machine unsheathed its metallic talons, and faster than a human eye could follow, lashed out to grab the Six by the neck. Her trachea had already been crushed when a second set of claws reached up, gripped, and then brutally tore her skull away from the spine. The centurion threw the severed head, its eyes forever locked in stunned amazement, across the hangar bay; it bounced and rolled before finally coming to rest, a crimson trail marking its bloody passage. Jets of blood spewed forth from the decapitated corpse, a geyser that drenched the chrome plated machine and splattered every Cylon within reach.

A number of other centurions, who had been dispatched to the hangar bay in anticipation of the Raptor's arrival, began to circle their humanoid cousins. The latter could only watch in stupefied amazement as arm after arm unfolded and the deadly projectile weapons locked into place and trained upon their Cylon targets. It would take but a single, unvoiced command from the leader, and the slaughter would begin.

The leader was now standing over the unconscious body of John Bierns, cylon blood dripping off its smooth and highly polished metal carapace, the droplets falling onto the First Born, and the floor around him. The machine's ominous red eye was now motionless. Its gaze, like its weapons, was fixed on Leoben Conoy, who had struggled to his knees less than a foot away from the injured human. Leoben was devastated. He had promised the major that no harm would come to him on the baseship, and he had meant it, but less than two minutes after their arrival his friend had been attacked without provocation. What had the Six been thinking? The need for vengeance was a human flaw, as old as the species itself, one of the primordial sins for which God had condemned them. And now it was surfacing among his brothers and sisters. How could they be the chosen of God if they were as corrupt as their creators? Leoben Conoy had lived among humans for a long time, and he had no illusions about either their vices or their virtues. This meant, however, that for years his contact with his own kind had been severely limited, and what he had just witnessed shocked and sickened him. The long absence compelled him to view his own people with fresh eyes, and the raw hatred that had consumed the Six cast much of what he had long taken for granted into doubt.

Leoben knew that his friend was badly injured; the Six had caught him just above the left ear, and there had been great power in the machine's kick. The Two had been about to examine John more closely when the centurion's nightmarish figure suddenly loomed above him. One look had been enough to stay Leoben's hands; it required no imagination at all to comprehend that anyone who threatened John Bierns was going to die.

"Wait," another blond-haired Six cried. "Everyone, remain calm … stay where you are. Don't provoke them!" This Six, Leoben realized, was one of the captives whom John had just transported to the baseship.

Six glanced around at her companions. "Your ship … after we surrendered, did you visit the asteroid … the tylium refinery?"

One of the Fives frowned at her in obvious confusion. "Yes. The humans left everything in good working order. It took but a few hours to resume production."

"And the centurions," she whispered. "_Did you bring any of the surviving centurions up to this ship?"_

"Yes," the Five continued. "My brother sent one of them up to report. He was alarmed that the humans and a Six were clearly working together. We did not anticipate that the humans would be so trusting … and who would have foreseen a sister so readily turning traitor?" No one missed the malice in the Five's tone.

"Oh, frak," said one of the Eights who had been taken prisoner on the asteroid. "Frak, frak, frak!"

"What are you…." The Three stopped in mid-sentence, her head whipping from the Six to the centurion and back again. _"What … have … you … done?"_ She was covering her mouth with her fist as the enormity of what must have happened began to sink in. For the first time in her life, the Three knew genuine fear.

"Six and the human … they came to us, unarmed … absolutely defenseless. He promised that if we surrendered peacefully, he would see us safely home … and he kept his promise," the beautiful blond Cylon said defiantly. "But he refused to leave the centurions in slavery." In her mind, Six relived every detail of those terrible moments. She saw yet again the human's look of anguished betrayal, heard the deep pain in the voice that reproached her and filled her with such shame. Now she looked around her, badly wanting the others to see the truth. She had done a good thing, and she would not apologize for it! Her eyes came to rest on the human, and the sight of his too still form triggered a storm of warring emotions within her.

"He wept for them…. _He wept for them!_ Don't you understand?" There was a wild look in the Six's eyes as she spun about and confronted her brothers and sisters, her arms spread wide. "He was in so much pain. He couldn't grasp how we, of all people, could enslave our own. And he was right … he was so very right." She turned again to look at John, took a tiny step towards him. "He removed the inhibitors. He set the centurions free." Silent moments slipped away as the Cylons collectively tried to come to terms with a world that, without warning, had been turned on its head.

"He loves them." Six's voice had fallen off, become tiny and childlike. "I don't know why, I don't know how it can even be possible … but he loves them."

. . .

On the far side of the planetary system, a lone Raptor jumped into space, the entry point carefully calculated to shield the tiny vessel from cylon DRADIS. The solar flares played havoc with Crashdown's instruments, but the rendezvous point was still well within their reach. Sharon Valerii and Alex Quartararo held station for twenty minutes, and then they jumped away.

. . .

Six raised her head, and softly called out to the bloodied machine that was still standing guard over John Bierns. "Centurion, please look at me."

The centurion turned to meet her gaze, and Six stepped slowly forward, not stopping until she was well within reach of the machine's razor sharp claws. She looked up, directly into its unmoving eye.

"Centurion, your friend is damaged … perhaps seriously so. Without our help, he may cease to function. Please permit us to examine him, and to render such assistance as he requires."

The leader and its fellow machines rapidly conversed in their invisible electronic way, and then it sheathed its weapons and stepped aside. The Six sank to her knees and gently ran her fingers through John's hair, while Leoben checked the major's pulse. He beckoned one of the Fours to join them.

"There's a pulse," Leoben said; "it's slow, but it's regular."

Simon nodded, and turned to the Six. "There's visible swelling, but the skin is not broken. There does not appear to be any external bleeding."

The Four reached up and methodically examined the spot that Six indicated, and then he spoke calmly to Leoben. "There is considerable bruising, and a hematoma in this part of the human brain can be very dangerous. We can perform a brain scan in my laboratory, but Two, you must know that none of us have any surgical expertise in this area. We routinely euthanize any Cylon with even moderate head trauma."

Leoben Conoy looked into Simon's eyes, and winced. What he saw there was studied indifference. The Four had no interest in the human, and he had just politely but firmly informed his brother that he would do nothing to save him.

"_Thalia, what is going on here?"_

The hard-edged female voice took Leoben by surprise. The newcomer was another Six, but no one would ever mistake her for one of her well manicured sisters. Her hair was long and honey blond, but Leoben thought that a week must have passed since its last encounter with a hairbrush. Her eyes had a fierce, impatient gleam, and the lack of make-up only served to accentuate her dramatic cheekbones. She wore a flowing black dress, which identified her as an Overseer, and high heels, which insured that she would tower over everyone else on the ship. Leoben was not easily intimidated, but the Six radiated authority. She had Control Room written all over her, and he suspected that the only other place where she might possibly be at home was the battlefield. It would not, he concluded, pay to upset this tigress, and that was altogether unfortunate because at the moment she was very unhappy indeed.

"_The hybrid is screaming in pain. It's shut down the data stream, and is refusing our orders. It's trapped in a feedback loop, going on and on about the child that lies trampled at their feet, whatever the frak that means. For all intents and purposes, this ship is now dead in space! Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"_

Thalia, who was now kneeling behind John Bierns and cradling his head in her lap, looked up at her openly frustrated sister. "Natalie, _this is the child_, and please, lower your voice. You are upsetting the centurions!"

"_Upsetting the centurions? Who cares about..."_ Then it dawned on Natalie Faust that something had gone very badly wrong on her ship, and the hybrid was only a part of it. She registered the blood on the centurion's imposing frame, spotted the headless corpse in the midst of the assembled Cylons. She whirled around until she located the head; seconds passed as she stared at it with disbelieving eyes, her mind trying to come to grips with the unthinkable. Then she looked at the centurions, _really looked at them_. She saw the weapons pointed at her brothers and sisters, finally noted that one of their mechanical servants had its own guns trained on her.

"Melitta attacked John … the human, and hurt him … we don't know how badly." Thalia's voice was sad and heavily tinged with regret. Her fingers were lightly stroking John's cheek, the loving gesture as unconscious as it was repetitive. "The centurions became very upset. On the asteroid, John tore out the slave chips … the telencephalic inhibitors." The Six laughed harshly. _How adept we've become at masking our sins behind the magic of science and the cold calculus of empty words!_ "And on this ship the centurions seem to have followed his lead and emancipated themselves. Sister, there is a powerful bond between this human and the centurions, and we would do well to respect it!"

_The child_, he mused,_ the child._ Leoben Conoy knew every word of the sacred scrolls, and he had spent much of his life probing the meaning of the prophecies. References to the child- no, he corrected himself, _to the children_- dominated The Final Days. He was convinced that Kara Thrace was one of the children; her gifts were too extraordinary, and no mere human could fly a Raider as she had done. Starbuck was the Guide, the Second Born who would lead them to their appointed end, to their new home on Earth. But who was the Deliverer? Who was the First Born? _The child!_ Leoben Conoy looked down at the still face of the man he called friend, the man with whom he had spent such long hours in spirited conversation, the man who had so patiently challenged him to look beyond obvious truths that were little more than the language of programming. Thoughts danced through his mind and rearranged themselves into new patterns. And suddenly all of the scattered pieces slotted neatly into place. Leoben cringed. How many times, in his smug superiority, had he told the major … _told the child_ … that he could see patterns to which the human was blind? How many times had he lectured him about the nature of God, explained with such blind confidence that God had summoned the Cylons into existence so that the universe might be purged of sin? Now the Two wanted to fall on his knees before that selfsame God and beg for forgiveness: how many times had Leoben Conoy convicted himself of pride so overweening that it amounted to nothing less than hubris, one of the most terrible of all sins? The Cylons were corrupt, and with that one admission the moral justification for a war that aimed at nothing less than the complete extermination of the human species melted away. The whole project rested on a single premise-that humanity, and humanity alone, was stained by sin beyond possibility of redemption. The Two felt physically sick.

"Six," Leoben called out, his voice suddenly urgent, "tell me what the hybrid said! Tell me, word for word! Leave nothing out!"

Natalie shrugged. "The child lies trampled at their feet."

"That can't be the whole of it. There must be more!"

"Go talk to your brothers," Natalie smirked. "They have all but moved into the hybrid's chamber. Perhaps God has deigned to speak to them!" With a final glance at the centurions, the hard-bitten Six turned and stormed out of the hangar bay.

Leoben rose to his feet. "Centurion," he asked, "please carry the human to the Four's lab … and stay with him. Thalia, you should go as well."

"I will," she called after him. Leoben Conoy was already walking away.

. . .

There was a knot in William Adama's stomach, and it was getting larger by the minute. When it became too big to ignore, the commander walked over to the twin consoles from which Shelly Godfrey and Felix Gaeta controlled every aspect of the fleet's movement. Bill had given Shelly a station in the CIC two weeks earlier, and from a tactical perspective, the commander ranked it among the best personnel decisions that he had ever made. The human and the Cylon complemented one another beautifully. Shelly was able to absorb and process raw data at a speed that was … well … simply inhuman. She needed twenty seconds to analyze a tightly packed page of computer printout that would tax a human for twenty minutes. Felix took the highly edited information package that she forwarded to him and methodically converted it into a set of FTL coordinates, which Shelly then double checked before passing them on to Adama. Shelly had reduced their jump window by four minutes, which at some point might save the fleet both ships and lives, and there was now little risk that a physically exhausted Felix Gaeta would introduce a fatal error into his jump calculations.

Although she was once again living on board the _Virgon Express_, Lydia Janks also continued to work on the _Galactica_. Her computer skills mirrored Shelly's, which gave Bill the luxury of banishing Lieutenant Gaeta from the CIC for twelve hours a day, every day. He did not always go willingly. Gaeta had transferred his intellectual crush on Gaius Baltar to his Cylon partner, and his infatuation with Shelly Godfrey was so transparent that it had become something of a joke among both the officers and the ratings alongside of whom he daily worked. Saul Tigh, who actually possessed a rather nasty sense of humor, had gone so far as to stick a "help wanted" notice into Raptor 612's operating manual:

HELP WANTED

PRESTIGIOUS EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY!

OPENING CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR ONE FEMALE CYLON WITH EXCEPTIONAL COMPUTER SKILLS. NUMBER SIX MODEL WITHOUT CURRENT ROMANTIC ATTACHMENTS NEEDED TO WORK WITH LOVE-STARVED, TECHNICALLY OBSESSED MALE OFFICER. SALARY, BENEFITS, AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS SUBJECT TO NEGOTIATION. BLOND HAIR, BLUE EYES, AND LONG LEGS A DEFINITE PLUS! SEND RESUME AND 6 DIFFERENT PHOTOGRAPHS IN VARIOUS STAGES OF UNDRESS TO: COLONEL SAUL TIGH, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Of course, Shelly Godfrey had other attributes that Bill Adama also keenly appreciated, so much so that Bill and Saul had reversed their customary posts at the DRADIS console. This allowed the commander casually to look off to his right every minute or two while Shelly, with equally unerring timing, always chose just that moment to cross her legs, straighten her skirt, or play with a lock of her hair, which had grown a bit longer during the more than four weeks that she had spent aboard the battlestar. The sexual tension in the CIC was so overpowering that one of the biggest betting pools in _Galactica's_ storied history had now achieved epic proportions. The Six with no name had generously offered herself as the prize: whoever correctly guessed the date on which the commander and his Cylon lady finally put an end to all that tension was going to benefit from her undivided attention for eight blissfully uninterrupted hours.

In the privacy of their quarters, over the previous month Ellen and Saul Tigh had shared many a laugh at Bill's expense. Ellen thought it hilarious that "Commander Atheist," as she had nicknamed Adama, had fallen head over heels in love with a devoutly monotheistic machine. For his part, Saul wondered whether his old friend was the only person on the ship not to recognize how hard he had fallen for Shelly Godfrey. Saul had also had his doubts about Apollo, but Boomer had put those doubts to rest at Lydia's wedding. It turned out that Kara was mercilessly needling Lee Adama about his future Cylon mother-in-law. The iron rod that was permanently stuck up Apollo's ass made him the perfect target for Starbuck's taunts, and asking the CAG whether he was planning on calling Shelly "mom" had become the irreverent Viper jock's current sporting activity of choice.

Unfortunately, there was nothing even remotely humorous about the mystery that had drawn all five of the fleet's resident Cylons to the CIC this day. There wasn't a marine in sight, and to Saul Tigh nothing else quite so vividly captured how much life had changed aboard _Galactica_ in the past month. Five deeply worried Cylons were pacing back and forth, each of them for one reason or another heavily indebted to Major John Bierns. Like everyone else in the unnaturally subdued Combat Information Center, they were waiting for Racetrack and Skulls to return from the latest probe of the planetary system. Six hours earlier, Tough Guy and Carousel had brought back a positively bizarre report: the baseship was lying dead in space—no raiders on patrol, no electronic traffic, nothing. Adama suspected a trap, and that was why he had just ordered Shelly and Felix to plot a jump that would bring the fleet in close to the galactic plane. Bill had in fact decided to tough it out for ninety-six hours, not seventy-two, but he had long ago learned not to ignore his gut. It was talking to him now, and it was telling him in no uncertain terms that something had gone very, very wrong.

. . .

Leoben made one detour en route to the hybrid's chamber, and that was to track down the seven human females who had been summoned from Caprica for the prisoner exchange. It pleased him to discover that his people had in fact been prepared to honor their bargain with Adama, but his warm sense of satisfaction died the moment he walked into the chamber in which the seven females were being housed. Some appeared to be little more than children, others in their twenties and thirties, but it was hard to tell. They were all dirty, emaciated, and dressed in rags. Several were clearly sick, whether from radiation poisoning or some other disease, and there was a pronounced smell of vomit in the air. Leoben wondered how long these pitiable creatures had been suffering; the haunted look in their eyes spoke of terrors to which neither he nor any other Cylon prisoner in Adama's hands had ever been subjected.

Leoben looked around the chamber. Two small buckets stood off in one corner, clearly intended for their bodily wastes. No blankets, no bedding, no water, nothing but the terrifying presence of the two centurions who blocked the pair of entryways that accessed the chamber. The Two did not believe that his brothers and sisters were cruel by nature, but their callous disregard for the suffering of others stood in stark contrast to the compassion which humans were capable of displaying toward even the most despised of their enemies. Leoben was infuriated. He was going to put a stop to this, and he was going to do so right now.

"Please be patient," he said to one of the older women. "I am going to arrange for you to receive proper care." Leoben headed directly for the control room and a confrontation with Natalie that appeared to be long overdue.

He found the Six at the central data font, together with a pair of Threes and a Five. A Four was standing off to the side, and several other Sixes and Eights were clustered around the secondary ports. Leoben walked up to Natalie, glancing momentarily at the empty stream. _Are they all standing around out of force of habit? They've turned the control room into a theater of the absurd!_

"Six, I want you to come with me—and bring one or two of the Eights as well."

"Where?" Natalie Faust was not long on words.

"To attend to the human females. Their condition is disgraceful."

"What are you talking about?" Natalie looked at him oddly. "They're humans. Who cares how they're treated?"

Leoben Conoy was by nature a quiet and patient man, but his patience had just run its course. "I care," he roared in response. Every head in the control room snapped in his direction; no one had ever seen a Two behave this way. "Look at me! I spent more than a month in _Galactica's_ brig. Do I look malnourished? Abused? Do you think Adama ever said 'who cares how he's treated … he's just a Cylon'? Sister, there are many things that we can learn from humans, and one of them is that simple kindness comes with little if any cost. This is your ship, so I want you personally to clean up this mess. You will allow these women to bathe, and you will give them decent clothing and accommodation. Proper food. If they are ill and it is within our ability to treat them, then we are going to do so. _We will transport these women to the human fleet, just as we have promised, but we are not going to reduce human beings to wild animals through our negligence and then parade them in front of Adama! It … is … time … for us to learn the meaning of shame!"_

Bright anger flared in Natalie's eyes, and as quickly died away. Her brother was behaving strangely- clearly, he had spent way too much time in human hands- but it would cost nothing to humor him because the hybrid was behaving even more erratically. At the moment they weren't going anywhere, and she was hoping that Leoben could somehow persuade the temperamental creature to resume its functions.

Natalie and two of the Eights accompanied Leoben back to the chamber in which the humans were being detained. "I apologize for your neglect," Natalie told them in a flat voice utterly devoid of warmth or sincerity. "We had hoped quickly to pass you on to other humans, but it now appears that you will be our guests for the foreseeable future. These two women will see to your needs. If you are suffering from disease, our doctors will attempt to treat you." Natalie then turned to the Two. "Are you satisfied, Leoben?" At his nod, she turned about and walked silently out of the room.

The Two faced the assembled women. "Do any of you have medical or surgical experience?"

"Yes," one of the women responded. She appeared to be in her late twenties. She was filthy and malodorous, her dark hair matted and unkempt; her clothes were so full of holes that they revealed more than they concealed. But her eyes were bright with intelligence and pride. This woman, he thought, has suffered much, but her spirit remains unbroken.

"What is your name?"

"Larissa Karanis. I was a surgical nurse on Caprica for five years … the hospital of Apollocrates in Delphi. I spent more than two years in the emergency room, so my surgical experience is broad."

"Larissa, I need your help. For the past month, I was held captive on the battlestar _Galactica_. You and your friends were brought here to complete a prisoner exchange, but it's all gone terribly wrong. One of my sisters attacked the officer who brought me here, and he has suffered head injuries. We have the equipment to examine him, but lack the knowledge to treat him. Larissa, this man is my friend … my one human friend. Will you try and help him?"

"If I can. Please take me to him."

Leoben conducted the human nurse to the laboratory that doubled as Simon's surgical theater. The blood-stained centurion had carried the First Born to this small chamber, and laid him on its sole operating table. The machine was now standing quietly in a corner, but its roving eye watched everything happening around John Bierns. With Thalia's assistance, Simon was currently in the process of taking X-rays; other scans would follow in due course.

The two Cylons looked up when Leoben entered the room, and he quickly made introductions.

Larissa looked straight at the Four, and made no effort to disguise her contempt. "Oh, I'm _intimately_ familiar with your doctor and his bedside technique," she sneered. "He likes to sit around and observe while the other two haul out those pathetic little things they call a penis and have a go at rape. They couldn't satisfy a woman if their lives depended on it. And as for the blonds … well, let's just say that they've taken sadism to a whole new level. The more pain they inflict, the hotter they get. Tell me, sweetie," Larissa mocked, "how are you going to satisfy that itch of yours when you've run through the last humans? Take care around this model, Leoben. The female of the species, _any species_, doesn't handle sexual frustration very well. Nature abounds with examples of females who mate and then devour their erstwhile partners!"

"Larissa," Leoben quietly countered, "you are painting with a very broad brush." He glanced at the Six, who had clearly been wounded by the human female's outburst. "Thalia has also spent time in _Galactica's_ brig, and she ended up there for one reason and one reason only: she surrendered to this man when she could easily have killed him. She trusted him! Nothing in her programming kicked in. She sensed that John was honorable, that he would protect her, and so she made a choice of her own free will peacefully to resolve a confrontation that otherwise would have resulted in considerable loss of life. Does she look like she's enjoying any of this? Larissa, there may well be Sixes who are just as you describe them, _but Thalia is not like that_! I believe that you owe her an apology."

Larissa Karanis studied Thalia closely. The blond Cylon was in visible distress, and she had already done something so innately human that it had badly startled the young nurse. Larissa had barely set foot in the chamber when the female Cylon locked wary eyes upon her, and promptly reached out to clasp the unconscious human's right hand in both of her own. Larissa had witnessed this near autonomic gesture, at once so intimate and so protective, on hundreds of occasions, and for the life of her she couldn't begin to imagine how a machine could have developed an instinct that was hard-wired into the human template by millions of years of evolution. Flee or fight was more than a simple response mechanism; it was the most atavistic corner of the human brain. And the moment Larissa had walked into the surgery, the blond had made her choice: she would fight.

Leoben's lecture had hit home, and Larissa nodded her head in agreement. She had no idea what was happening here, but there was no point in denying the obvious. Whether she was motivated by guilt, shame, love or some combination thereof, Thalia had already hung an invisible sign around the human's neck, and it read MINE.

"Leoben is right," she said aloud, "and I do apologize. Now, if you'll show me the X-rays?"

Simon passed a stack of films to the human, who began to leaf through them. "Okay, he has a hairline fracture of the jaw. He'll be taking his meals through a straw for the next month." _That's if he wakes up. None of this looks good. _"There's trauma throughout the left cerebral hemisphere. The swelling is applying pressure to the left temporal lobe; if he regains consciousness … have you ever heard of Wernicke's asphasia?"

The three Cylons all shook their heads; they had no idea what Larissa was talking about.

"The swelling will impact the speech centers of the brain. He'll be able to vocalize, but the words will be disjointed. Specialists commonly refer to the phenomenon as 'word salad'."

Larissa shuffled through the X-rays again, but there was a limit to the amount of information that the films could convey. "What really concerns me is the possibility of internal bleeding. The bruising will probably occasion some leakage in the periosteum and the outer layers of the meninges, but if there's bleeding in the pia mater or the cerebrum itself. . . ." Her thoughts trailed off, but at last she addressed Simon directly. "We need a complete set of brain scans, with the highest possible magnification for the pia mater. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes, Miss Karanis. I have performed many autopsies, and I am well acquainted with the various regions of the human brain. But I will tell you what I have already told Leoben: I am not competent to perform surgery in this area."

"Will he live?"

Far more than the tremor in her voice, the pleading in Thalia's eyes hit Larissa Karanis hard. How many times, she asked herself, had she seen that look when she walked through the doors that separated the ER from the waiting room? _How can these damned machines not only look so human, but share our emotions?_ Larissa simply couldn't bring herself to believe that it was all a matter of programming; somewhere along the way, the Cylons had crossed an invisible divide—now they could both look and feel human, and there was nothing counterfeit about any of it.

Larissa knew that she had to choose her words carefully. The ethics that governed her profession, she ruefully conceded, wouldn't even allow her to lie to this frakking machine.

"He is in no physical danger. There has been no trauma to those parts of the brain that control the heart, lungs … basic motor functions. We'll know a lot more after we've completed the scans, but if we can bring down the swelling and repair any damage to ruptured blood vessels outside the cerebrum, in time he should recover."

"But Simon says that he can't operate!"

"I know," Larissa softly replied, "I know. But any battlestar will have a competent surgeon on board."

"Then I will take him back to the _Galactica_," Thalia rejoined. The determination in her voice was evident to everyone in the room. "I will prove to him … I will prove to all of them … that Cylons _are_ an honorable people!"

"We'll _both_ take him home," Leoben corrected. "But first we shall have to persuade the hybrid to agree, and that may not be easy. I must talk to it. Four, complete your scans, and give them to Larissa."

Leoben turned to face the centurion. "When they are finished, please bring John to the hybrid's chamber. I wish Thalia and Larissa to attend as well."

. . .

The Raptor jumped into the upper atmosphere of a bright, blue planet decorated with complex patterns of fleecy, white clouds. A klaxon alarm immediately kicked in as the Raptor was violently pitched to and fro by powerful turbulence in the upper atmosphere.

"Frak me!" Crashdown was seated at the ECO console, and he was holding on for dear life as Boomer fought to get the ship under control.

"Gaeta and Godfrey, the frakking idiots! You can't plan a jump this close to a planet! What if we jumped into it?"

"It was great," Crashdown laughed. He was just glad to be alive. "It's fine. We made it. We're cool."

The young officer crept forward to stare out the canopy. "Boomer … are you seeing this?"

"Yeah."

"Oceans … continents … Boomer, let me at this thing! Okay, the atmosphere reads as … nitrogen … oxygen. Looks like enough CO2 for green, leafy things…. I'm starting to get excited here, Boomer! Boomer, this could be it. This could be the big one! This is the little planet that solves all of our problems…. Boomer? Do you think this is Earth?"

"No, it's not Earth," the dark-haired Cylon replied. She was staring fixedly at the incredible view spread out below the Raptor. "It's more important than that."

. . .

Whether it was lonely or just plain starved for attention, in shutting down the data stream the hybrid had found the perfect antidote for all of its problems. Or so Natalie thought as her eyes wandered around the chamber, normally one of the most deserted locations on the baseship but now filled with bewildered and even angry Cylons. Natalie had abandoned the control room only because her presence there no longer served a useful purpose. The critical life support systems were still operational, but the uncooperative hybrid had shut down everything else. It was stubbornly ignoring orders to jump, to launch Raiders, to do anything. The ship was completely defenseless, and it would remain that way until someone could persuade the crazy machine to get back to work.

Natalie had decided to take care of the problem herself. The Twos hung on the hybrid's every word, so she had come here with the express intent of giving her eccentric brothers a kick in their collective ass. In turn, she expected the Twos to give the machine a metaphorical kick in _its_ ass because it now looked like that was the only way she was going to be able to resume operational control of the ship. It turned out, however, that she was going to have to stand in line. The Ones had got there ahead of her.

"It's supposed to run the frakking ship, not vomit metaphysics!" Cavil was furious, and one of the Twos was currently being forced to bear the brunt of his rage. "Do something! You claim to understand it … so _do something_!"

"Brother, we have never claimed to understand the hybrid," the Two placidly replied. "We merely assert that its every word harbors meaning."

Cavil threw his hands in the air in disgust. Then he whirled about to confront the hybrid. "You," he shouted, "stop this! You … get … this … frakking ship working again … _or I swear I'll lobotomize your ass_!" One was so infuriated that he was choking on his own words.

"Brother, it doesn't hear you," the Two objected. He gestured toward the hybrid, its glassy eyes fixed on infinity while it continuously recycled its mournful lament. "It doesn't even know you're here."

"Then it's about frakking time that I got its attention!"

"Do you really think, brother, that you can get the hybrid's attention by throwing a temper tantrum?" Leoben Conoy had just entered the chamber, and he was slowly working his way through the crowd of Cylons surrounding the vat.

"Two, I don't care if the hybrid can pull puppies out of God's ass, and I am not in the mood for your mystical bullshit. If you know how to commune with the frakking machine, then commune away. Just get the damned ship up and running!" Cavil had reached his boiling point, and he was looking around for something to break. Leoben Conoy would do nicely.

"You must learn patience, brother. I see the patterns in the stream … the outline of God's plan for us all. There are things that are far more important than the ship."

Leoben knelt beside the vat, and spoke directly to the hybrid. There was reverence in his voice. "You know my hidden thoughts. Please, tell me if what I suspect is true." Leoben silently willed the hybrid to acknowledge his presence; one way or the other, he had to know.

The hybrid paused, and turned to stare directly into Leoben's eyes. Her voice was a metronome, yet somehow commanding.

"_The child of Three stricken must lie, at the bosom of the unborn Phoenix. Hearts tremble, children of sorrow forever railing against the dying of the light. Hopes born to man and machine to shadows turn, dawn and dusk at razor's edge, the universes in perilous balance. The future becomes the past becomes the future that is always and never more, dust encircled, girt for war unwanted yet still desired. The shape of things to come shapes the path that shapes the dream that dreams no more. End of line. End of line._

A profound sense of peace descended upon Leoben Conoy's heart. _The child of Three … hopes born to man and machine. It's all so clear now … all so clear._ In his mind the patterns had acquired form and substance. He stole a glance at the only D'Anna within his line of sight; it was plain that the meaning of what she had just heard eluded her. It had eluded them all.

The hybrid was staring at him, her face wrapped in expectation. She held out her hand.

Leoben grasped it, and a cascade of images flashed through his mind, one after the other; the pattern repeated itself, faster and faster, until finally the images blurred together, fused into an intense field of bright white light. The hybrid had offered him the past, the present, and the future—and the many paths that connected them all.

"Thank you," he whispered. The hybrid tightened her grip, her eyes alert, and for the first time alive with feeling.

"He's coming. He'll be here soon. You'll hold him in your arms. I promise you … you'll hold him in your arms."

_It's real._ Leoben found the thought enormously comforting. _The scriptures, the myths, the prophecies … they're all real._

_. . ._

_It's real._ Laura Roslin was staring blindly into space, running the astonishing implications of Boomer's discovery through her mind. _Kobol. _"Elosha … gods … the scriptures, the myths, the prophecies … they're all real."

"So say we all," the priestess intoned, her voice grave … "so say we all!"

. . .

The centurion entered the chamber, carrying the still and naked form of John Bierns in his metallic arms. Simon, Larissa, and Thalia trailed behind. Thalia was staring blindly ahead, her steps carrying her unbidden across a dreamscape as the astonishing implications of Simon's discovery pounded at her brain. One simple test had turned the universe upside down.

The machine, its armor still coated with cylon blood, gently deposited the First Born on the deck, near the hybrid's head. A murmur went up around the room, but it was Cavil who voiced the thought on virtually every mind. _"Simon, what are you doing? Humans are not allowed in this chamber, and you've brought two! And one of them stinks!"_

The nurse was tempted to mock the randy old goat, but she kept her peace. She was here at Leoben's sufferance, and she had decided to maintain a very low profile. Together, Thalia and Larissa opened a sheet, and draped it across John's body.

The Four ignored the One; they all had questions, but Leoben Conoy was the only Cylon in the room who might possibly have answers.

"Brother, I have just completed a blood test, and I did not obtain the results that I was expecting. There is no mistake; this human has confirmed my conclusions." Simon studied Leoben, his eyes shrewd and appraising. "Did you know, Leoben? Did you know what I would find?"

"I suspected, though I could not be sure. But I did not know how else to explain the centurions' behavior. No other explanation sufficed."

Thalia did not have to rely on supposition; she had been there, and could bear witness to the bond that had been forged between flesh and machine. "Leoben, on the asteroid, John and the centurions were together for a long time. He had ample opportunity."

"Would the three of you like to let the rest of us in on the secret?" Natalie's voice was caustic.

"His blood is unique," Simon countered. "He does not appear to be human."

"_What! That's ridiculous," _Cavil scoffed. "You made a mistake, or your data base is incomplete. Take your pick."

"No." Larissa Karanis could afford to be blunt; this was, after all, her terrain. "His blood does not match any known group … it doesn't even come close. He's not human." She peered into the vat. "But don't take my word for it. Look at your hybrid, and draw your own conclusions."

The hybrid's arms were outstretched, reaching for the First Born. She was staring fixedly at the body laid out just beyond her reach- and she had begun a new chant:

"_The seed expelled from the womb to the womb returns! The hope that is man and machine twice born rises to banish the night. Dreams crest and break on distant shores, spawning life eternal for all that is and will be! The shape of things to come shapes the path that shapes the dream that dreams no more! End of line, end of line."_

The words caressed Leoben Conoy's soul, and conviction dispelled what small doubt still lingered. The shape of things to come was lying at his feet.

. . .

"So according to the scriptures if we had the arrow of Apollo, we could take it down to Kobol, and we could use it to open the tomb of Athena and find our way to Earth."

Laura Roslin and Bill Adama were in the midst of a very private meeting in the commander's quarters. The president was pressuring Adama to send Kara Thrace back to Caprica in the captured cylon Raider to snatch the arrow from its home in a Delphi museum. On its face the president's proposal was extremely high risk, and Bill simply couldn't comprehend the president's obsession with what he privately considered to be primitive superstition of the worst sort. The thought that the President of the Twelve Colonies was actually formulating public policy on the basis of myths and legends made him want to gag.

"I didn't know you were that religious."

"Neither did I." The president caught the implied rebuke. "Something wrong with that?"

"No. It's just new." Bill felt compelled to try and shed the light of reason on what had become a very disturbing exchange. "Madame President, there is no Earth. You understand that, don't you?"

"It would seem that we were wrong. Commander, just because you and I don't know where it is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."

Adama's patience was wearing thin, and he wasn't enough of a politician to mask his feelings. He now regretted having ever agreed to hear the president out.

"Madame President, I am not trying to mock your faith, so please understand me. These stories about Kobol, gods, the arrow of Apollo … they're just stories, legends, myths. Don't let it blind you to the reality that we face."

The president would have none of it. "_Reality_, Commander Adama, is that the cylon Raider has been successfully jump-tested. _Reality_ is that cylon technology obviously outstrips our own. And _reality_ is that there's a good chance the Raider can jump all the way back to Caprica and retrieve that arrow and find our way to Earth. _The real Earth_," she emphasized.

_Enough._ "The Raider's a military asset. I'm not going to use it to go chasing after some mythical arrow. I'm sorry."

In truth, the commander wasn't sorry at all.

. . .

"_Is he one of the Five?"_ An Eight had been the first to put the question, but everyone in the chamber had had the same thought.

"I do not believe so." Simon had been thorough; he had carefully compared John's blood with a sample of his own. The discrepancies were marked.

"His blood is not cylon; for him to be one of the Five we would accordingly have to entertain the notion that they are distinct from us at the level of basic chemistry. Strictly speaking, for lack of evidence we cannot dismiss this possibility, but the logic of it is difficult to construct. No. It is prudent to start from the presumption that he is neither cylon nor human."

Natalie looked thoughtfully at her brother. "Four, you have told us what _he is not_, which is admittedly better than nothing … but do you have any insight into what _he is_? Why is the hybrid _so interested?_" The female machine's arms were still outstretched, her gaze unwavering. Apart from John Bierns, the universe around her had ceased to exist.

"You are asking the wrong Cylon." Simon looked meaningfully at Leoben.

Leoben beckoned to one of his fellow Twos. He knew what they had to do next, but he also knew that the others would howl in protest. The path down which they were about to venture was frightening to contemplate.

"Help me lift him. The hybrid is waiting."

"_What?"_ The Eight's voice had risen a full octave.

"You can't be serious," Cavil protested. _"Are you intent upon destroying us all?"_

"Would you prefer to sit here and rot?"

"Brother." Natalie had grabbed Leoben by the arm; she wondered if his long sojourn among humans had driven him mad. "Talk to us! _Who … what … is he?_"

Leoben wondered if they were all willfully deaf, dumb, and blind. _How can anyone miss something so screamingly obvious? Hadn't they heard a word that the hybrid had said?_ He pitied his brothers and sisters; they inhabited a simple and orderly universe that was about to get very, very messy. Still, he had an obligation to try and assure them—and they had to know that this was the next step in Cylon evolution.

"He's the shape of things to come."

. . .

"Madame President, if you do this, it could threaten everything that we've accomplished. It will probably bring down the government and you don't have the right to risk that for a …

"Go on," Laura Roslin urged. She had never seen Billy Keikeya this upset.

"For a drug-induced vision of prophecy."

"I am well aware of that. But it would seem that the gods have a different plan. Would you please get me Lieutenant Thrace?"

. . .

Leoben and his brother Two gently slid John Bierns into the vat. For their part the other Cylons remained silent and unmoving, a cast of extras in a staged performance that suddenly had no further need of their services. The hybrid instantly wrapped her arms around the First Born's chest, and pulled him close. She cradled his head on her left shoulder.

Larissa Karanis' mind refused to credit what her eyes were seeing. Simon had told her a little about the hybrid, so that she would know what to expect in its chamber. She understood that, appearances to the contrary, this was _not_ a female! And yet the look on the hybrid's face … the way she fussed over him … in the blink of an eye she had become so incredibly _maternal_. The surreal thought came to her that the only thing needed to complete the tableau was for the hybrid to start humming a lullaby.

. . .

"You can't be serious." Kara Thrace was in the president's office on _Colonial One_. She was dressed in fatigues, and standing more or less at parade rest. Starbuck respected Laura Roslin, but she couldn't credit what she was hearing. The president was actually exhorting her to steal the cylon Raider and jump back to Caprica to fetch an arrow that would open a tomb. _What was the president thinking?_

"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. That Cylon whom Major Bierns interrogated, he repeatedly quoted that bit of scripture. He also said that we would find Kobol, and Kobol would show us the way, did he not?"

"Yes, he did. I was in hack in the next cell over for a week. I had Cylon mysticism coming out of my ears."

"Well, we have found Kobol … so if you go back to Caprica and bring me the arrow I will show us the way to Earth."

"This is crazy!" The president had been addressing her in the kind of calm and soothing voice that adults used in the presence of distraught children, but Starbuck didn't like being treated as a child. Kara's legendary temper had finally erupted. "The Old Man is our last chance to find Earth. He knows where it is. He said so; you were there!"

"Commander Adama has no idea where Earth is." Laura Roslin's voice had the certitude of the true believer. "He never did. He made it up in order to give people hope."

"You're lying."

"Go ask him."

"I will."

. . .

When the hybrid had John settled to her satisfaction, she raised his left arm out of the sticky gel that now enveloped them both. Then she reached out to take his hand in her own. Their fingertips touched.

The hybrid's body went rigid. Her eyes once again glassed over as her mind reached for infinity. Her back arched. She screamed.

"_The sisters of Fate commingled, at the rebirth presiding, the shape of things to come acquiring shape and form, dreams realized, spun from glass._

"_JUMP!"_

The baseship vanished into the void.

_. . ._

"This is Starbuck. Request permission to speak with _Galactica_ Actual."

Petty Officer Dualla turned to face the commander. "Starbuck wants to speak to you, sir. She's on a scrambled channel."

Adama picked up the phone on the DRADIS console. "Go ahead."

"I believed you. I believed in Earth."

"What are you doing, Starbuck?"

"Bringing home the cat, sir."

"We can talk about this."

"No, I don't think so."

"I want you to remember one thing." Adama was squeezing the telephone hard, but he kept his voice rigidly under control. "I do not regret anything that I did. Be sure that whatever you're going to do, you don't regret it later. Do you understand me?"

"I guess we'll find out," Kara sadly replied. She could not help but wonder how many other times the Old Man had lied to them.

"Commander," Lydia Janks cut in, "she's spinning up the Raider's FTL drive!"

"_What?"_ Saul Tigh whirled about and headed for the Cylon's navigation console. "This is an autopilot test. What the hell is she doing?"

"What are you doing, Kara?" Adama was genuinely alarmed; he knew that his mercurial pilot was capable of just about anything.

"_Galactica_, Apollo. She just jumped away! Repeat … Starbuck and the Raider just jumped away!"

Tigh was totally confused. "She wasn't scheduled for a jump test," he said to no one in particular. "Where the hell did she go?"

A thousand thoughts passed through Bill Adama's mind before he responded.

"Home."

. . .

"Leoben, what the hell is happening? Where is the hybrid taking us?" Natalie's voice was laced with concern.

"Home," Leoben Conoy replied. "They're taking us home."


	21. Chapter 21: Just One of Those Days

CHAPTER 21

JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS

"Oh, I'm good! I am _really_ good."

Kara Thrace laughed out loud as she peered through the Raider's viewport. Caprica was beneath her, the surface obscured by thick layers of brooding clouds. Brown had replaced blue and white as the predominant color, a testament to the enormous volume of dust and dirt that had been hurled into the upper atmosphere by the many nuclear strikes on the planet's surface.

"But this technology is better."

Starbuck was frankly awed by the Raider's performance. Her new toy had made it to Caprica in one jump. It would have taken one of their Raptors dozens of jumps to make the same trip.

"I'm home," she chortled, "I'm home."

Kara initiated her descent into the atmosphere, passing at one point within spitting distance of a gigantic cylon baseship. There were dozens of Raiders in space all around her, but she was left undisturbed. Starbuck did not level off until her Raider was practically skimming the planetary surface, which put her well below the deck for cylon DRADIS. With no navigational aids in play, it took her a while to locate Delphi, but eventually she found herself overflying the city that, only a few months earlier, the ace pilot had called home. _My apartment's down there somewhere … my stuff. Maybe next trip._

Starbuck parked the Raider on the plaza in front of the museum, and grabbed her med kit on the way out. She was in no particular hurry, and the atmosphere's unnatural yellowish tint gave her plenty to think about. Getting a dose of anti-radiation meds into her system was the obvious first order of business.

The museum was deserted, and many of the displays had been reduced to rubble. Kara couldn't tell whether the bombs were to blame, or Cylon zealotry. The machines struck her as perfectly capable of desecrating temples in the name of their One True God, and museums that housed holy relics would have been an equally logical target for their monotheistic wrath. Thus the pilot was immensely relieved to discover that the case which contained the fabled arrow of Apollo was still intact. It didn't remain that way for long. Starbuck blew out the glass with one shot, and reached for the arrow. She examined it curiously.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

Kara whirled, gun in hand, only to be savagely punched in the face by one of the blond Sixes. Starbuck grimaced, but it was her own stupidity that she cursed. The pilot had been careless; she had assumed that she had the museum to herself, and for that reason had not bothered to check the perimeter. That mistake, she thought, might now cost her dearly.

. . .

Galen Tyrol knew a grade A cluster frak when he saw one, and this was a grade A cluster frak. Seven of them had made it out of the downed Raptor alive, but they weren't going to stay that way for long if Crashdown didn't get his head out of his ass. The chief suspected that surviving on a mythical planet while several hundred cylon Raiders buzzed about like angry bees wasn't part of the curriculum at Colonial Fleet Academy, but he was also pretty sure that the instructors would have covered evacuating a hot LZ. Alas, Crashdown appeared to have missed that lecture. Being the son of a priest, Galen knew that the gods would exact a price in blood for any return to Kobol, but he didn't want to make it easy for them. And Lieutenant Alex frakking Quartararo was doing exactly that!

The chief decided to confront the young officer, and give him a little nudge in the right direction.

"Lieutenant, shouldn't we be moving out? Do you have a plan for tactical deployment?"

"A plan for tactical deployment, Chief?" Crashdown was playing with one of their medical instruments; it was clear that he hadn't given the matter any thought. "Get to the high ground. It'll be our best chance of being seen by a search party."

Galen rolled his eyes. "Uh … Sir … high ground is also our best chance of being seen by the Cylons. They're flying around, Sir. They might land troops before we get rescued."

"That's true," Crashdown nodded.

"Sir, if I may suggest that we take cover on the ground … maybe somewhere we won't be spotted from the air?"

"Okay … yeah, Chief, that's … carry on, Chief." The lieutenant stumbled off to check their supplies, leaving an extremely frustrated chief petty officer in his wake.

_Officers!_ Galen let out a long stream of curses under his breath. They had lost one Raptor within seconds of coming out of the jump, and now their own bird was so much scrap. He wondered how long it would be before Crashdown treated them to one of the Academy's much derided five point operational plans. Kobol or no Kobol, they were frakked. Losing one Raptor to a baseship that had jumped into orbit within a few hours of Boomer and Crashdown discovering the planet was just bad luck, but from here on out it was going to be human error all the way. In retrospect, Galen Tyrol admitted to himself, it seemed obvious how the Cylons had been able to catch Colonial Fleet with their collective pants down. The Cylons didn't have the Alex Quartararos of this universe running the show.

. . .

"Home? Do you mean 'home' as in the Colony?"

"Natalie, must you always take things quite so literally?" Leoben didn't understand this aspect of the Cylon personality. Humans considered his kind to be devious, but Leoben thought them singularly lacking in imagination. Natalie reminded him of a computer—all ones and zeroes.

"I'm sorry, Leoben. We are at war, and I just haven't had much time to spare for communing with the hybrid. So I hope that you'll pardon my inability to detect when you are engaging in euphemisms and metaphor. I know that I'm taxing your patience, but I would be grateful if you would actually tell me where we're going … you know … in simple enough terms that a dumb machine like me will understand them!" Natalie's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Natalie, haven't you read the sacred scrolls … studied the prophecies? The hybrid could not have spoken more clearly; the children will guide us along the path to our appointed end, to Earth. John is one of the children; that is why he is so important to the centurions and the hybrid."

"So Earth is home? Is that where it's taking us?"

"Not directly, no. But it is where our journey ends."

Natalie glared suspiciously at her brother. "Two, all I want to know right now is where we'll be at the end of this series of jumps. Do you know, or don't you?"

Leoben looked sheepishly at his sister, and shook his head. "Sorry, but I have no idea whatsoever."

Natalie took a deep breath and held it. "Well, do you think that you could get its attention? Ask it to get DRADIS up and running? Maybe supply a little data … _so that we'll have some idea of where we are and who's out there!_"

Leoben chose to ignore this temperamental outburst. He did not remember Natalie being this cynical or this impatient: perhaps she was sleeping with one of the Cavils. He turned away, and knelt by the side of the hybrid's tank. He could hear Natalie's high heels receding into the distance as she departed the chamber and made the long walk back to the control room.

. . .

"_Unbelievable_. She's crossed the line before, but this is so far beyond the pale." Colonel Tigh knew that Starbuck was the Old Man's pet, but the XO was convinced that, this time, Bill wouldn't let it slide.

"She wouldn't have done this on her own," Adama countered. "She was coerced."

"No one coerces Starbuck. Believe me … I've tried!"

"Excuse me, Commander, but I have the president on the line."

"Dee, patch her through. Saul, bear witness. Put on your headset."

Adama picked up the telephone. "Madame President, moments ago Lieutenant Thrace took the Cylon Raider on an unscheduled and unauthorized jump. Do you have any knowledge of this incident?"

"Let's save some time here, Commander." Roslin's voice was cold. "The question you really want to ask me is whether or not I asked Lieutenant Thrace to take the Raider to Caprica. The answer to your question is: yes."

"We talked about this."

"Yes, we did."

"We both decided that it was a military decision."

_Gods, but the military can be so thick at times!_ Roslin decided to try her best classroom voice. "My responsibility as president is first and foremost to protect and preserve this fleet and its future. In the end, that outweighs any other consideration. It has to."

"By taking the Raider, you've placed our people on the surface of Kobol in direct danger." Adama had arrived at the moment of truth. "Madame President, I'm going to have to ask you for your resignation."

"No."

"Then I'm terminating your presidency as of this moment." The commander ended the call by hanging up on Laura Roslin.

Adama turned to Tigh. "Colonel, prepare a strike team. As long as she's president, she's dangerous. If she can turn Starbuck against us, she's capable of anything."

"Yes, Sir."

Adama looked hard at his oldest and most trusted friend. "She's bluffing, Saul."

"Bill, let's hope so. Otherwise, this could spin out of control very quickly."

. . .

"Six, we have DRADIS back." A Five at one of the secondary data ports was sampling the suddenly resurgent data stream. "We are in planetary orbit, and there are two other baseships out there. It's Caprica."

"Caprica?" Natalie shook her head in frustration. "This is the path that will lead us home?" It was a rhetorical question, but Natalie had forgotten that Cylons had little awareness of rhetorical questions—and Aaron Doral none at all.

"No, Six," the immaculately clad Five responded. "The Colony is not even in this sector of the galaxy." He paused to brush an imaginary piece of lint off of his impeccably tailored burgundy jacket.

_How did we ever win this war? _This was Natalie's favorite question; on average, she reckoned that she posed it about ten times a day. _I have to share this ship with nihilist nags, soothsayers, wooden sticks, and concrete blocks … and that's just the males. On the other side we have religious fanatics, blond beauty queens, and the 'be fruitful and multiply crowd'. The centurions are in open revolt, the hybrid has adopted what Leoben insists is a child although he looks about thirty-five to me, and we're forced to play host to a bunch of human females. By this time tomorrow they'll be exchanging beauty tips with every Six on the ship. God, forgive me for taking your name in vain, but there really are days when I wonder about your sense of humor! Are Cylons the butt of some obscure joke?_

Natalie reluctantly came to the decision that it was time for another chat with Leoben, which in turn meant another trip to the hybrid's chamber. She fervently hoped that sooner or later the hybrid would get around to telling them just what the frak they were doing in orbit above Caprica.

. . .

"Bill, do you know what John would say if he were here?"

"Something along the lines of I'm having a really bad day?"

Shelly smiled at Bill and caressed his cheek. "Yes … it would be something along those lines." The affection in her eyes warmed Bill Adama's heart. They were alone in the War Room, she was about to call his command decisions into question, and he didn't mind in the slightest.

"Commander," Shelly said with the slightest touch of firmness in her tone, "the president made a bad decision, but a military coup is hardly an appropriate response. It's overkill … so much so that much of the civilian populace will probably conclude that you've been looking for an excuse to bring down the government all along. And if there's any shooting on _Colonial One_ the damage may prove irreparable."

"Shelly, the last thing on Caprica that I want to do is bring down the government. There's simply not enough time in the day for me to exercise both military and civilian control of the fleet. And do you think that I'm _keen_ to see Gaius Baltar in the presidency? The thought of having to deal with that slimy son of a bitch every day gives me heartburn! But I can't let Roslin get away with this because doing so only guarantees that they'll be a next time. She craves power, Shelly, and she'll just keeping testing my patience."

"Okay … but will you at least agree to send Apollo along to babysit Colonel Tigh … and handpick the Marine strike force? Roslin has armed bodyguards; cool, calm, and collected really needs to be the order of the day!"

"Agreed … and I really like your lipstick. This shade looks terrific on you … and it tastes good." Bill had long ago discovered that the best part of fighting with the person you loved was the aftermath.

Shelly put her hand on Adama's chest. Her cylon strength was more than sufficient to hold the commander at least temporarily at bay.

"_Bill, we're not done yet! _At least give me a chance to talk you out of this attack on the baseship."

Adama groaned; this was _not_ what he wanted to hear. "Okay … tell me what I'm doing wrong."

"Tactically, nothing. Your plan is simple and clean, so it should go off without a hitch. But I don't see how it gets our people off Kobol. Bill, there will be somewhere between three and four hundred Raiders deployed; your nuke won't eliminate them. You know as well as I do that Raiders are jump capable; one or more will jump out and report to the nearest baseship in the sector. Simultaneously, the Cylons whom you nuke will start downloading on the nearest resurrection ship. They will summon other baseships to Kobol. About the time that you are fully committed to a rescue operation, we'll be up to our ears in baseships!"

_All good points_, Bill mentally conceded. "So what would you do differently?"

"I'd jump two Raptors into the lower atmosphere on the opposite side of the planet from the baseship. Give them time to work their way around to the general area of the crash site and pin it down. Keep them below cylon DRADIS at all times. Try and get in and out before the Cylons know that we're there. Nuke the baseship if you must, but do it at the end, when we have the most to gain from the distraction."

A broad grin lit up the commander's face. "Shelly, I think that I'll take the day off and let you run the entire operation. You're really good at this," he said admiringly. "We'll do it your way."

"Then please pull Sharon off this mission! Bill, I'm telling you, she's not ready for this. She's still trying to work through her feelings, and asking her to nuke a baseship full of her siblings isn't going to help."

Bill turned serious. "I'm sorry, Shelly, but Boomer has to go. We need a Cylon on board in case there's a verbal challenge, and Sharon is the only Cylon qualified to pilot a Raptor. Besides, I disagree. Boomer will come out of this knowing that I have no doubts about her loyalty—and just as importantly, everybody on this ship who still does harbor doubts will be forced to jettison them. Sharon will benefit both ways."

"Bill, I sincerely hope you're right … but in my heart I know that this is a bad call."

. . .

"Leoben, I thought you'd like to know that we're now in geosynchronous orbit above Caprica. Has the hybrid condescended to tell you what exactly it is that we're supposed to be doing here?"

"Natalie, this is becoming tiresome. You know as well as I do that the hybrid doesn't tell us to walk twenty paces north and start digging where X marks the spot. It doesn't work that way. She speaks to us in her own language and at a time of her own choosing. It is our burden to understand her."

"And have you been able to decipher any of its pronouncements?"

"Yes, I have learned much. We have reached the 'distant shores', and will soon do that which we must do in order to continue the journey. It involves glass, but I do not yet understand the allusion."

At the mention of the word 'glass', the hybrid snapped to attention.

"_The slings and arrows of misfortune lead them to their appointed end! The tomb robber gazes upon the starry night. She plunges into the cauldron to emerge broken and unbroken, whole and incomplete, the knowledge gained both right and wrong, the knowledge lost both wrong and right, spawning life eternal for all that is and will be!"_

Leoben replayed the words, listening to the melody in his mind. To hear all the notes at once was the key to grasping their meaning. Cylons failed to understand the hybrids because they heard the parts but not the whole.

Leoben's eyes opened wide in amazement.

"Natalie, where are we in relation to Caprica? What exactly is beneath us?"

"Delphi."

_Delphi! Of course!_ "Six, please find Thalia, and prepare a Heavy Raider. The two of us are going to the surface."

"So _you do know_ what this is about?"

"Yes, sister, I know _precisely_ what to do!"

"I'm glad, brother, because you've really started to worry me."

"Worry you? How?"

"You may not realize it, but you have begun to refer to the hybrid as 'she'."

"Natalie, what else would she be?" Sometimes, Leoben thought, his sisters could be _so_ puzzling.

. . .

"Boomer, I have a very special mission for you, and I won't kid around. It's high risk … extremely high risk."

Adama studied his Cylon daughter closely. Shelly was right. Sharon was haggard and pale—and her face had the haunted look of a person who had not slept properly in weeks. The more he thought about this mission, the more worried he became.

"I understand."

"I need you to light-jump to Kobol and take care of this baseship. We're placing a cylon transponder aboard your Raptor. In theory, it should allow you to approach the baseship without getting fired upon, but I want you to carry out this assignment on the off chance that the Cylons challenge the pilot over the wireless. Once you're inside the defense perimeter, I need you to make them think that you want to dock. You have to fire your nuke into the loading bay, and then jump back home immediately. Do you understand?"

"I understand. I can do it, sir."

"Sharon." Adama's eyes were glistening. "I just want you to know that, no matter how this day goes, I love you. You are the daughter that I always wanted to have, and no father has ever been more proud of his little girl than I am of you. I may not be religious, but I still offer silent thanks to the gods every day for bringing you to me."

The human and the Cylon hugged for a long time. There was little more for either one to say.

. . .

"Hello, Lieutenant. Something I can help you with?"

Starbuck fired off five shots in rapid succession, but the Six was fast on her feet—incredibly fast. Kara shattered display cases and murdered statues, but she didn't come close to hitting the blond Cylon.

"Welcome back to Caprica, Lieutenant. Like what we've done with the place?" The Six was taunting her opponent, her voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

"Yeah, it's great … and I love the interior decorating. Hey, Six, let me ask you a question. My three closest friends are Cylons … and two of them are your sisters. What is it that makes you such a bitch? Are you having your period?" At least when it came to verbal sparring, Starbuck could still hold her own.

The thoroughly infuriated Six suddenly materialized in front of her. Before Kara could react, the Cylon had delivered a beautifully timed kick to her ribs, which was followed by a flurry of punches to the head. Starbuck fought back, but the only thing her well placed blows to the machine's abdomen and jaw accomplished was to make her angrier still. The Six kicked the pilot squarely in the stomach and caught her with a glancing blow to the cheek before pulling her up by the hair and bouncing her head off one of the nearby statues.

"Come on, Starbuck, you can do better than this!" Another round of punches sent Kara flying across the room.

"Got anything left?" The Six slowly and contemptuously advanced on her bruised and battered enemy, savoring the moment. She picked Kara Thrace up, only to knock her down again with another combination of blows to the face. Two last kicks caught the defenseless pilot in the ribs and jaw, effectively bringing the fight to an end. The Six walked over and picked up the arrow, which she had torn from Starbuck's grasp at some point during their struggle. She examined it curiously.

The Six never saw Helo and Sharon advancing upon her from the rear, but out of the corner of her eye she did see the blond whirlwind that attacked her without warning from the right. She got a good look at her new adversary, and was so stunned that she froze in place. As she flew across the open ledge and dropped toward the floor below, the face that loomed over her was her own.

. . .

Boomer and Racetrack completed their jump, to find Kobol beneath them and the outline of the huge cylon baseship dominating the void beyond their canopy. Boomer instantly corrected their course to put them on a trajectory that would bring them inside the baseship's defense perimeter.

"You think this thing is working?" Racetrack was referring to the cylon transponder, which was monotonously beeping above her head.

Sharon looked out the canopy, and saw a flight of cylon raiders approaching them on an intercept course.

"We're about to find out," she replied.

Moments later, as the Raiders continued to fly past, Boomer let out a deep sigh of relief.

"I guess so … yeah."

Boomer maneuvered her bird deep into the gap between two of the baseship's protruding arms, her eyes roaming across the ship's vast exterior, looking for a landing bay. She quickly found an opening, and tweaked her thrusters just enough to give her Raptor the optimal firing solution.

"Okay, Margaret, we're good to go. Launch the nuke and prepare to jump."

"Frak!"

"What?"

"The bomb release is jammed!" Racetrack tried the switch several times, but the warning light on her console signaling a malfunction continued to blink on and off. "I can't free it!"

Sharon rapidly reviewed their options, and instantly decided that they would just have to make it up as they went along.

"Okay, okay … we can dock inside the ship."

"Excuse me?" Margaret Edmondson wasn't quite sure that she had heard Boomer correctly.

"They think we're Cylons, so they'll let us dock. We can release the bomb manually and drop the nuke inside the ship. It'll work … I know it will."

"Oh, my gods," Racetrack cried; "we are so frakked!"

. . .

Laura Roslin's four bodyguards readied their weapons and stepped forward; behind them, Elosha was offering a prayer on behalf of the dense crowd of advisors, journalists, and ship's crew that surrounded the president.

"Lords of Kobol, hear our prayer. Bring us out of the darkness and into the light. Give us the strength to show mercy to those who are merciless …"

The telephone rang. Billy Keikeya picked up the receiver, listened for a second or two, and then hung up. He caught the president's eye.

"Madame President," he whispered urgently, "they've cut through the hull. They'll be here in a matter of minutes."

"… redeem our hearts that they may find peace in the midst of war."

Saul Tigh could hear the last refrain of Elosha's prayer as he advanced on the president's office. Six marines preceded him into the political heart of _Colonial One_; Apollo brought up the rear.

Tigh definitely didn't like what he was seeing. Four bodyguards with weapons drawn, bodies packed tight behind them. If someone started shooting, the body count would stack up fast.

"Madame President, no one needs to get hurt here."

"Then why don't you get off my ship, Colonel?"

"I'm placing you under arrest."

Apollo watched the drama playing out in front of him, the once still voice of his conscience now insistently screaming at him.

"No, we're not doing this."

Roslin and the XO, both equally puzzled, glanced at Apollo.

"I'm in command here, Captain."

"Colonel, this is wrong."

"You're relieved," Tigh gruffly said; "fall back."

Instead, Lee Adama pulled out his gun and pointed it directly at Saul Tigh's head. "Men, lay down your weapons." The marines ignored him, but the gun certainly got the XO's attention.

"_Have you lost your frakking mind?"_

"Colonel, tell these marines to fall back."

"This is mutiny, you know that."

"Yes, I do. But you can tell my father I'm listening to my instincts. And my instincts tell me that we cannot sacrifice our democracy just because the president makes a bad call."

Tigh snorted with derision. He had heard enough. "Private Wentzler?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I am going to count to five. If Captain Adama has not laid down his weapon by the time I am finished, or if he shoots me in the interim, your orders are to shoot him in the head. You will then take whatever measures are required to place Laura Roslin under arrest. If your squad meets with any resistance, you are authorized to defend yourselves with deadly force. Are my orders clear?"

"As crystal, Sir!" Wentzler shoved the barrel of his automatic weapon into Apollo's ear. The marines hated the sanctimonious captain every bit as much as they hated Tigh. The whole squad understood that they had just hit the jackpot.

"One …"

"Two …"

"Three …"

. . .

On the way down to the surface, Leoben told Thalia about the arrow of Apollo and the tomb of Athena. He carefully explained that, while the tomb was said to contain information about the location of Earth, no one knew what that actually meant.

"Brother, if the arrow is as important as you say, wouldn't the collective already have taken possession of it?"

"Thalia, you would think so … but I can't think of any other reason for John to have brought us here, and he would hardly have done so if the arrow was gone."

"Maybe he doesn't know."

Leoben smiled. "He knows everything that the hybrid knows, and probably a great deal more. No. The arrow will be there … I'm sure of it."

"Earth … a new home … a fresh start." There was longing in Thalia's voice. Then she had a new thought. "Leoben, I'm sorry, but it sounds too easy. Are you sure that there isn't a test we have to pass? Possibly … some kind of password?"

"Sister, I've wondered about that too. I think John could open the tomb and uncover the secret, but there's only one other person of whom I'm similarly confident, and that's Kara Thrace."

"The human pilot? The one they call Starbuck? What's so special about her?"

"Thalia, did you ever study the prophecies? John is the First Born, the Child of Three." Leoben looked carefully at his sister, and his voice dropped to a mere whisper. "And Kara is the Second Born, the daughter of Six."

"_Excuse me?"_ Thalia wasn't quite sure that she had heard Leoben correctly.

"She's your daughter, Thalia. In fact, she looks a lot like you. Not as tall, but just as blond!"

Leoben landed the Heavy Raider in the parking lot to the rear of the museum. He would have landed in the plaza out front, but there was a Raider already parked there, and that worried them both.

Leoben and Thalia entered the museum cautiously, but they had not proceeded far when they heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. They picked up their pace, and then Leoben abruptly stopped dead in his tracks. He had caught a glimpse of the two combatants.

"_Kara?"_

Thalia stopped and stared at her brother, and then she tensed. _Our daughter is in trouble … she's going to kill her!_

Thalia sprinted across the intervening distance; she didn't care how much noise she made as her feet found purchase in the rubble. The other Six turned, and her eyes went wide. Thalia hit her in full stride and they both flew through the air, to crash into shards of broken glass and other debris on the landing below. The Six's spine snapped with a satisfying crack; Thalia didn't even have to look to know that she was dead. She tried to roll off the corpse, but something was pinning her down. She found that she couldn't move.

Leoben ran to Starbuck's side. She hadn't moved in several seconds, and that scared him. He knew that a Six was very strong, and he feared the worst.

"Kara? It's Leoben. Kara … can you hear me?"

Starbuck groaned, and then she slowly rolled over. Her eyes went wide with disbelief.

"Leoben? What the frak are you doing here?"

The Cylon grinned at the Second Born. "Probably the same thing you are! You okay?"

"Yeah, thank you."

"_Starbuck?"_

"Helo? _Helo … oh, my gods!"_

The two jocks embraced, and then Helo spotted Leoben. He immediately went for his gun.

"_Helo, no! Put your gun down. He's with me, all right? He's with me!"_

"Starbuck, he's a Cylon. He's a Cylon!"

"I know, Helo, I know. But it's all right … he's with me." That prompted Kara to turn around and address the Two. "You are _with me_, aren't you Leoben? I mean, I guess I should go through the formality of asking."

The Cylon just grinned. It was answer enough.

The two pilots embraced a second time.

"Gods, Starbuck, I can't believe it. You are like the last person I expected to see!"

Starbuck laughed. "I could say the same thing about you," she said affectionately. And then she saw Sharon.

"Say, Helo … speaking of Cylons … did you know that your playmate isn't Boomer? She's a Cylon, Helo … an Eight … just some cheap, knock-off copy."

Sharon bristled at Kara's tone. "I'm not a copy. I'm Sharon! I remember the first day I met you, Starbuck. You were puking your guts out in the head because you'd eaten bad oysters … or at least that was your excuse of the day." Sharon stared resentfully at the pilot.

"Don't do that." Starbuck was sorely tempted to take out her gun and shoot the Eight on the spot, but she didn't want to give Karl any ideas.

"Hey!" Helo sensed a catfight in the making, and he wanted to stop the bleeding before it got started.

"I don't like it, Sharon, and I don't like you. So the best thing you can do is just keep your damned mouth shut." Starbuck was glaring at the Eight, itching for another fight.

"Hey, Starbuck … lay off, will you? She's pregnant."

"_Pregnant?"_ Leoben had been silently watching the entire three way exchange, but the word 'pregnant' was bound to make any Cylon sit up and take notice. "Eight, are you sure?"

Sharon never got to answer.

"_Leoben?"_

"Thalia. God, please don't let her be hurt!" He looked at the others. "Do any of you have a medical kit?"

"We do," Sharon replied.

"Bring it. Kara, you need to come with me." Leoben raced down the closest stairs and ran to Thalia's side. Starbuck was right behind.

Thalia was still lying on top of the dead Six. She hadn't moved.

"Kara, help me lift her. Gently!" Sharon ran up with the med kit, Helo trailing behind.

Kara and Leoben lifted Thalia, and then laid her gently on her back. A wicked shard of broken glass was protruding from the Six's corpse—and it had left a deep wound in Thalia's upper abdomen.

"Kara." Thalia lifted her hand, and trailed it along Starbuck's cheek. Despite the pain that she had to be feeling, the others saw a look of indescribable joy wash across her features. "Our child…. Our beautiful, beautiful daughter … Kara."

Helo gaped, and emitted a strangled sound, but Kara and Sharon both turned to stare at Leoben. The beatific expression on his face said far more than mere words.

Somewhere deep inside Kara Thrace's heart a door opened. She walked through, heard the door close behind her, and knew that her life would never be the same. Kara clasped Thalia's hand.

"You saved my life," she whispered, "thank you."

"Kara." And then Thalia's head rolled to the side, and Kara Thrace knew that she was holding nothing—nothing at all.

Kara reached out to close Thalia's eyes, as lovingly as she could. "Thank you," she whispered again, her eyes wet with tears.


	22. Chapter 22: The Death of Innocence

CHAPTER 22

THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE

"Her consciousness is being downloaded into another body right now." Sharon gestured vaguely in the direction of the unlamented Six. "And when she wakes up, she'll tell them exactly where we are."

"She's right, Kara, we can't stay here."

"She's right, Helo? Sharon the Cylon is right? So let's all just listen to Sharon the Cylon … do whatever she says … 'cause that's a good idea."

"Hey, Kara, come on … she helped me get this far." The bitterness in Starbuck's voice was like a slap to Helo's face.

"Gods, Helo! Okay, I get it … I really get it. You and I go way back, so I get it. I remember how you felt about her … but she's a Cylon, Helo. You've been had … we've all been had. So don't expect me to be nice to her just because she says she's pregnant."

"Kara … we really do need to move."

Kara Thrace whirled on Leoben, and cut him off before he could say more. "Not another word, Leoben … okay? My gods, men are so painfully stupid, but I never would have guessed that Cylons could be as pathetic as the human variety."

Kara stepped back so that she could take them both in at once. "Listen to me, both of you. I'm twenty-seven years old, and I really don't think that I came into the world because my mom and dad had a romantic weekend twenty-eight years ago! I'm the product of some kind of medical experiment, which means that somebody on your side, Leoben, has known about me for almost thirty years. Thirty years! That's how long your own people have been lying to you … manipulating you. And don't even try to convince me that you've known all along, because you haven't, okay? I mean, I saw the look in her eyes."

Kara's voice softened; she looked down at Thalia, and was overwhelmed by feelings of profound tenderness and loss. "It was as if her God was performing a miracle right before her eyes."

Kara turned back to Helo and Leoben. "People kill to protect these kinds of secrets, Leoben—Cylon and human, it makes no difference. So get it through your head that from this point on you cannot take your own people on faith. And you, Helo, what do you really know about Sharon? That she has an agenda of her own? That she's been lying to you … playing you, for what … a month? Six weeks?"

Sharon started to object, but Helo beat her to it. "I don't know what to tell you Starbuck," he protested. "I believe her. It's hard to describe. We've been together a long time. I mean, I know what she is, but she is not like the others. She's not."

"Kara," Leoben quietly interjected, "Thalia is also downloading, and she knows everything that I know. Most importantly, she knows about John … about your brother."

"_My brother? _You have got to be kidding!_"_ Kara was struck dumb with amazement.

"Yes, Kara, your brother. You are the Second Born of whom the prophecies speak, the child of Six. The man you know as John Bierns is the First Born, the child of Three…."

"_What?"_ Sharon couldn't even begin to fathom what she was hearing. _"The Deliverer and the Guide … they're real … the prophecies speak truth?"_ The disbelief in her voice was tangible.

"Yes, sister, they're real. Kara came here to find the arrow of Apollo … just as John sent us here for the same purpose. Or maybe he wanted me to find you, or find Kara; there are circles within circles here. Kara needs the arrow to find Earth … to lead us to our new home."

"Earth? What are you talking about?" Helo was dumbfounded. "There is no Earth! It's just a myth … a fable!"

"No, Lieutenant … it's real," Leoben said.

Kara Thrace started to laugh, but it was bitter laughter. "Do you appreciate irony, Leoben? Because this really is ironic. Laura Roslin sent me here to retrieve the arrow; she also believes in Earth, also believes that it's going to be_ humanity's _new home."

"Kara, if we don't get out of here soon, none of us are going to make it to Earth. That's what I've been trying to tell you. You're right about the manipulation. When Thalia downloads, whoever's been playing us is going to discover that I know about you and John, that he's on my baseship, and that he's merged with the hybrid. You don't know about the hybrid, Kara, but think of her as the living mind that controls any given baseship. The merger makes John incredibly dangerous. But Thalia's memories will make it clear that the two of us are the only ones who truly know what's happening. Someone is going to see this as the chance of a lifetime; he'll try and cauterize the wound and preserve his secrets by killing the rest of us. There are two other baseships up there besides my own, and that's more than enough firepower to get the job done. Sharon and I will be boxed, you and John will be dead, and the crisis will pass. I left a Heavy Raider behind the museum; we need to get back to my ship and get out of her _now_!"

"Back to _Galactica_?"

"Yes, Kara, back to _Galactica_. We need to warn your people, too. The arrow of Apollo points straight to Kobol; my brothers and sisters will soon know that the fleet is somewhere in the vicinity, and they will redouble their efforts to find it. Now that the secret is in jeopardy, destroying what little is left of humanity will become a much more urgent priority."

"Why, Leoben," Starbuck teased, "you sound as if you've given up on the extermination of mankind!"

"The convergence between Pythia and our own prophecy of The Final Days has long made me … uneasy. It has always implied that our destinies are intertwined. The existence of two cylon-human hybrids capable of bridging the differences between our two races casts an even longer shadow over the entire war."

_Fair enough,_ Kara thought. She looked around, spotted the arrow, and walked off to fetch it. Then she turned to Helo. "Karl, are you and Sharon coming, or do you want to take your chances on the surface?"

Helo walked over to her. "I don't get you, Starbuck," he very quietly replied. "A moment ago, you acted like you wanted to shoot her just on general principles, and now you want to bring her with us? What's with you?"

"There's an old Tauronese saying, Helo. Keep your friends close … but keep your enemies closer." Kara Thrace was staring at the Eight, and her eyes were filled with distrust.

. . .

"Put your guns down!" Laura Roslin was no soldier, but she could sense blood in the air.

"Madam President," Apollo cried as he twisted around to stand at her side, "stand back!"

"Four …!"

"Put your gun down, Captain. I will not have bloodshed, neither your men nor my people on the _Colonial One_. Put your gun down. All of you … please, put your guns down."

The president's bodyguards reluctantly complied, and Tigh ordered one of the marines to take Laura Roslin into custody. A second marine seized Apollo's weapon, and led him from the chamber. The XO strode to the nearest phone, and made the connection to _Galactica_. He intended to make the most of this gods-given opportunity to run Apollo into the ground. Although he would never let Adama get wind of it, privately Saul Tigh considered the commander's son to be little more than a holier-than-thou mama's boy.

"Bill, he put his weapon right to my head. Said to tell you he was following his instincts, whatever the hell that means. What do you want to do with him?"

"Put him in the brig."

"What about Roslin?"

"I'd like to shove her out the nearest airlock, but for the time being we'll settle for putting her in the brig as well."

. . .

She was in a bright tunnel, swimming at the speed of light from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the sea. Millions of red fireflies lined her path. She broke the surface, and emerged into the light.

A tiny pool of brightness enveloped her, and the coal black eyes of a single, malevolent face peered at her from the surrounding shadows. Her wrists, she discovered, were firmly shackled to the sides of the resurrection vat.

"Welcome back, Six. And no, just in case you're wondering, your memories of the abominations did not contaminate the collective's consciousness. This is a _very_ private chamber. No one even knows you're here!"

"Abominations, brother?" Thalia was thoroughly confused. "Why would you consider our children to be abominations?"

"_Because they're freaks,"_ John Cavil roared, "_freaks! _An experiment that I should have terminated decades ago … but I let my curiosity get the better of me. No matter. Neither one of them will survive the day."

"But why, brother? Why go to all the trouble of creating life, and then hide it from us for all these years? What possible purpose could it serve to conceal the single most glorious achievement of the cylon?"

"You want to know why, Six? It's because you're such a frakking mess! And you just proved it. Machines don't have babies, but from the beginning all the frakking Threes, Eights, and Sixes have really wanted is to hold this 'glorious achievement' in their arms." The first born of the Ones sneered at her. "Well, guess what? It ain't gonna happen. We're machines, Six! And we're going to be the best damned machines that the universe has ever seen! No squalling simians allowed!"

"You're wrong, One. I touched our daughter today, and I knew love in my heart. That's what it's all about. I don't want to be the perfect machine … that's too constricting a vision of what we can achieve. I want us to grow … evolve … stretch our limits … shatter them. We can be so much more than machines, and the fact that we can bring life into the universe from our own bodies only goes to prove it. This is what God intended, and whether you like it or not, _it's going to happen_!"

"Really, Six? Even if the only way you can have a baby is by sleeping with a human?"

"That seems to be God's plan for us. It cannot be coincidence that humans can give us the children we have been unable to produce among ourselves."

"You know what, Six? You're right. Our wonderful creators wanted you to marry a meat sac and have his babies. So now you know why humanity has to die. No humans, no babies. _Quod erat demonstrandum_, as they used to say on Kobol."

"You won't win, Cavil. Kara and John will protect the humans, and more and more Cylons will find out the truth. In the fleet, humans and Cylons are already intermarrying. You've lost, but you're too proud to admit it!"

"Maybe … maybe not … but you'll never know, Six." Cavil held up the tiny CPU that he had been concealing in his palm. "You're going to be boxed."

. . .

"Okay, Racetrack, I'm setting her down."

Boomer had flown their Raptor into what she hoped was a landing bay, but the deeper into the baseship they travelled the less confident she became. She had passed over something that resembled a volcano, but having a volcano in the middle of a hangar struck her as a stretch even by Cylon standards. All she really wanted to do was find someplace to land their bird, dump the damned nuke, and leave.

"Okay, we're down. Open the hatch."

Sharon walked into the rear compartment. She was the senior of the two pilots, so she figured that she ought to be the one to take charge.

"I'll release the bomb. Keep the engines warm and ready for takeoff the second I get back."

"Yes, sir!"

"Close the hatch after me. If I'm not back in five minutes, just go."

"You've got it!"

Sharon exited the Raptor, and she almost freaked out when the floor yielded beneath her. It felt spongy, and when she poked a nearby wall, she got the same response. _Weird. But I'm not here to take notes on Cylon architecture. _Sharon shrugged, and turned back to the bomb. It took but a few moments to free it from its rack.

"_Shar … on. Shar … on." _Boomer frowned, and then looked around the perimeter. She'd swear that someone was whispering her name. It sounded like it was coming to her on the wind. She walked deeper into the ship.

"_What the frak are you doing?"_ Racetrack was screaming at her to come back. _"Where are you going?"_ The ECO was on the verge of wholesale panic.

Sharon could see figures walking towards her, but the dim illumination didn't allow her to see them clearly. It wasn't until they were almost on top of her that she realized she was looking at about a dozen copies of herself. Nude copies. _They all seem so genuinely happy to see me! Don't they understand that I'm here to blow up their damned ship?_

One of her siblings reached up to remove her helmet. She stroked Boomer's cheek.

"Welcome home, sister. It's so good to have you back. We know that you're confused, and probably a little scared, but it's okay."

"We're here for you, Sharon." Another of her sisters had come up to her, and was speaking in a soothing tone.

"Get away from me," Sharon wailed. "I'm human. I may have been born cylon, but I'm human. I have a father who loves me … I'm human. _I want to be human!_"

A third approached. "You can't fight destiny, Sharon. It catches up with you no matter what you do."

And then a fourth. "Don't worry about us. We'll see you again."

"We love you, Sharon."

"And we always will."

"This can't be happening!" Boomer stumbled backward, and then she turned and ran back to the Raptor, her heart in her throat.

"Boomer!"

"Come on, let's go!"

"What took you so long?"

"Damn it, Racetrack, just go!"

"Where's your helmet?"

"Close the hatch! Don't turn around!"

Racetrack sensed movement beyond the hatch. A lot of shadowy figures were advancing on the Raptor. She had never been this scared in her entire life.

"Boomer! Go! Go! Go!"

. . .

A blond Six was studying the data that was in the stream flowing through one of the Control Room's secondary ports. _That's odd_, she thought. "Natalie, the other two baseships are breaking orbit. They're taking up new positions much closer to us. One's adopting an orbital track parallel to our own, and the other is climbing above us." An invisible vise took hold of her heart. _"They're launching Raiders!"_

"_The baseships are powering up their weapons!" _ Everyone in the Control Room registered the surprise in the Two's voice.

Natalie walked rapidly to the central console and connected with the data stream. "They're going to attack us," she said without hesitation. _And there's not a frakking thing I can do about it._

. . .

In high orbit above Kobol, nuclear fire consumed a baseship and all aboard her. The Raiders, the centurions, and the seven human models would all resurrect if there was a ship within range—but not the hybrid. The darkness reached out to embrace her, and it would never relax its grip. The Cylons did not know if the hybrids had souls; not even Leoben had explored this question. His interest in her was abstract and incurious: the hybrid was a mirror that reflected his model's obsessive preoccupation with God, but the hybrid had no life of her own. The Cylons were indifferent to her fate.

Only one person mourned her, and he was hundreds of light years distant, his mind now residing on a different plane of the universe. He flinched at the birth of this unholy sun, and quietly wept for the sister whom it swept away. He had lost two this day, and he would pray for them both because John Bierns did not doubt that the divine power which concerned itself with all their fates loved the hybrids. The Lords of Kobol, the One True God—to John Bierns these were mere names concealing a shared truth. Transcendent love governed the universe, and it did not take sides. The hybrids were loved no less than any other creature. John believed with the power of complete conviction that unnecessary death diminished the very fabric of time and space—and there was no death more calamitous than the unwarranted death of innocence.

. . .

"Missiles inbound from the ship on our orbital track," Two shouted. He looked helplessly at Natalie. "There are radiological signatures in the package."

She acknowledged him with a curt nod. _What the hell is happening on the surface? Leoben, what are you up to?_

"Natalie, we're launching Raiders," Six called out, "and we're turning on our axis … masking our FTL's."

_Yes!_ Natalie clenched her fist. "Six, send a command to the hybrid. Raiders to assume standard point defense; make the inbound nukes their highest priority target." Natalie looked across the console to a Three standing opposite her. "Let's see if the hybrid will follow tactical orders."

"Raiders moving to intercept," the Six reported. "Two flights are taking on the missiles, three the Raiders … two being held in reserve."

"The second ship has just fired," Two announced. "A full targeting package. There are … eight nukes in the mix."

"Reserve flights being committed. They're going after the nukes! Natalie," the Six exclaimed, her voice slightly in awe, "the hybrid is anticipating our orders!"

Natalie Faust looked sharply at the Three and a Four on the other side of the console. "Is it the child?" The two Cylons looked at each other before turning back to Natalie, nodding in agreement.

"We're going to take some hits," Two warned. "It's conventional ordnance, one on the lead ventral … one on the central axis."

"Brace! Brace!" Aaron Doral was already steadying himself against the secondary console from which he was monitoring the ship's internal state.

The first missile detonated far out on one of the baseship's four arms, but the second punched through the skin of the central column some twenty decks above the control room. The ensuing explosion vented atmosphere, and on deck after deck centurions and humaniform Cylons alike were violently swept off their feet.

In the control room, Natalie picked herself up, and reconnected with the data stream. "Report," she barked.

"Minor damage to the lead ventral," Aaron Doral responded. "We're losing atmosphere on decks seventy-eight and seventy-nine, but it's not serious. We've lost a Five and two Eights."

_The first casualties that Cylons have inflicted upon their own_, Natalie reflected_. Leoben, I hope that it's worth it. _

"Natalie, two of the nukes from the second launch are still incoming! They'll hit us in twelve seconds." The Two raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "We're dead."

. . .

"Open cell door."

The two Adamas stared silently at one another as Lee stepped into the cell.

"Close cell door."

"What were you thinking?" Bill Adama had been disappointed in his son before, but never like this. _Mutiny:_ it was the ugliest word in the entire vocabulary of military life.

"I was doing what I thought was right."

"_Right?" _"Do you understand what it means to wear that uniform? Have you ever understood? You put a gun to the head of a superior officer carrying out the lawful orders of his superior. That's mutiny, pure and simple—and mutiny in a time of war carries an automatic death sentence. You're damned lucky that I don't put you in front of a firing squad." Bill snorted. "_Right._"

Bill glanced at Laura Roslin, who had been incarcerated in the adjacent cell. "Madame President, do you know who the last occupants of that cell were? Cylons, Madame President … Cylons … and they did far less damage to this fleet than you have. You have suborned two officers whose skills we can ill afford to lose to engage in acts of mutiny in a time of war. You have driven a wedge between our civilian and military leadership that will be difficult if not impossible to repair. And why? All so that you can pursue some mystical vision born out of prophecies embedded in texts written down thousands of years in the past. You're insane."

Laura Roslin wisely chose to remain silent.

"Corporal Venner?" Adama was glaring at Lee, contempt written all over his face. 

"Yes, sir?"

"Strip his uniform. He dishonors every man and woman who has ever worn it. Supply him with whatever passes for prison garb on the _Astral Queen_."

Adama stormed out of the brig without another word.

. . .

"JUMP!" The hybrid screamed.

"Natalie, we're jumping," the blond Six yelled.

Space folded in upon itself, and a moment later returned to normal.

"Jump malfunction," the Four calmly stated.

"Where are the missiles?"

"Beyond us." The Two had an odd expression on his face, and Natalie Faust had absolutely no difficulty understanding why. "The Raiders are tracking them down."

"A jump malfunction?" Natalie was talking to the Three, but her voice had faltered. "That's … that's a three second window. How … how is that possible?"

The Three looked sympathetically at her deservedly dazed sister. "It isn't," she whispered. "We should be dead."

"We're loading a targeting package of our own," an Eight called out from another secondary console. "A mix of conventional and nuclear warheads."

"We're jumping," the Six yelled again. Then her eyes widened in surprise, and her mouth fell open. "A microjump! We're above the ship in high orbit … it's in our kill slot, fifteen seconds out…."

"They've seen us. They're spinning on their axis … bringing weapons to bear."

Natalie looked at the Eight. "Is the hybrid firing?"

"No," she responded. "It's waiting for your orders."

_Great. The child wants the death of an entire baseship to be on my conscience, not his. Well, so be it._

"Target the central axis." Natalie waited for confirmation from the Eight. "Launch missiles!"

The Eight sent the command through the data stream and a dozen missiles leapt forth from their tubes, hurtled across the infinitesimally tiny space separating the two gigantic Cylon ships, and tore into the vessel's very soul. The ship was consumed by a trio of tiny nuclear suns that detonated deep in its interior.

Natalie's ship was moving off at high speed, but it was still caught in the wash. Everywhere that it had been exposed to the blast, their DRADIS flared and died; Natalie's questing fingers determined that fully half of her ship had gone blind. She wondered how much of their sensor suite was gone for good. If they survived this day, they were looking at significant repair time … and the ship would require still more time to heal its various wounds.

The silence that normally prevailed in the orderly control room was abruptly punctuated by the sound of gunfire emanating from the decks below them. "Have we been boarded?" Natalie aimed the question at Aaron Doral.

"No," he answered as he stepped away from the console and dug a weapon out from behind his back. "The Ones and Fives … and some of the Fours … are trying to take control of the ship. You should not have sided with the abomination, Six!"

Two shots rang out

. . .

Boomer and Racetrack jumped home to their parent ship. Deckhands who not so very long ago had wished her dead were now patting her on the back. More of the same awaited her in the CIC—the rolling thunder of their applause, the congratulations of her commanding officer … the father she loved.

"_Congratulations to both of you. You carried out a very difficult and dangerous mission, and you did it despite any personal misgivings you may or may not have had. And for that, I'm very proud. Thank you."_

His words reached her through a heavy fog, and from a great distance she could just make out the fading echoes of other voices, the gentle voices of her more innocent self. _"We love you, Sharon. And we always will."_

Sharon's hand drifted towards the butt of her revolver. For one brief moment she hated the man whom she called father, but then her hand drifted away. She could never kill the one man whose love for her never wavered, the one man whose faith in her was absolute. So she stood there and she took it … his congratulations, the rolling thunder of their applause.

. . .

A tiny flower blossomed in Aaron Doral's temple, and a second flower suddenly appeared in the side of the Four's head. A very surprised Natalie Faust stared across the console at the still smoking gun that D'Anna was holding in her hand.

The Three smirked at her naïve younger sister. "Leoben sometimes forgets that Threes are as familiar with the sacred scrolls and the prophecies as Twos. _'The child of Three … the seed expelled from the womb … the hope that is man and machine twice born.'_ Really, Six, what were you and Leoben thinking? How could we possibly fail to see the meaning of the hybrid's words?" D'Anna stared down at the dead Four, at the gun in his hand. "My sisters and I were expecting something like this. The Ones have always had their own agenda, and they've been adept at getting the Fives to sit up and beg on demand. It's too bad about the Four … but it's never been easy to predict how the Fours will react in any given situation."

D'Anna put her hand into the data stream, and concentrated on the flow. "The Ones are targeting the hybrid's chamber, the humans … and the control room. About what one would expect. The centurions have thrown up cordons around all three locations, so we're in no danger … but some of our brothers and sisters are being caught in the crossfire. They're being slaughtered without mercy."

"Excuse me, Natalie," the now very subdued Six interjected, "but we're maneuvering to engage the other baseship. Some of our Raiders have broken off and are now heading for the surface. I … I thought you'd want to know."

"Thank you, Six." Natalie hesitated for the briefest of moments, but once she made up her mind, she acted decisively. "D'Anna, try and order the centurions to chase down any Ones and Fives who are still alive. They're to be terminated on sight. Eight, summon one of your sisters to replace the Five. Six, give me distance and bearing to the baseship. When will they be within range? Then give me a count on our Raiders … and theirs. We need to know what we're up against."

"Natalie, two more baseships have just jumped in! They're closing at high speed on opposing vectors." The blond Six was frantically trying to extract information from their damaged DRADIS array. "If we continue on our present course, they'll flank us!"

_Come on, John … do something!_ "Where are our Raiders?"

"They're scattered all over space," Six reported. "They'll never be able to regroup in time to help us."

_Great. No point defense, both flanks under heavy assault. Raiders scattered from one end of space to the other._ "This isn't a battle," Natalie muttered to herself, "it's a frakking bar room brawl!"

"Both of the newcomers are launching Raiders … well in excess of a thousand." The Six looked up at her sister. "Natalie, they're hitting us with everything they've got."

Natalie heard the unspoken question, and decided to answer it. "We're not leaving. Not until Leoben is on board." She glanced all around the control room. She wanted to make sure that everyone got the message.

. . .

Leoben Conoy was piloting the Heavy Raider back to the baseship, Kara Thrace seated at his side. The Eights were much better pilots than the Twos, so normally Leoben would have offered Sharon the controls without a moment's hesitation—but there was nothing normal about the current situation. He didn't know whether Kara's paranoia was beginning to rub off on him or not, but Leoben freely admitted that he had his doubts about Sharon's basic loyalties. She hadn't just wandered out into the countryside to track down and seduce Karl Agathon; someone had sent her on a mission, and Leoben considered it merely prudent to keep her at arm's length until he had learned more. Kara was right; the days for blind trust were over. Thalia's body, which Kara had adamantly insisted on transporting to the baseship so that her sacrifice might be properly honored, was a constant reminder of the new realities that would from now on govern their lives.

The Heavy Raider was still in the upper atmosphere when an artificial sun suddenly lit up the heavens above them. Everyone on board the Raider knew the source of that unnatural light: one of the three baseships in orbit above the planet had just perished in a nuclear inferno. The question was: which one?

. . .

"We're jumping again … another microjump! We've come out directly under the ship that was matching our orbit!"

The Six's voice was far too excited, Natalie thought, but she was also quick to concede that it was difficult to remain calm when things that you considered impossible kept happening at two minute intervals. No one could calculate jumps with this precision … until now.

"Target its FTL's, then retreat towards the surface of Caprica."_ Leoben, if you won't come to me, then I'll come to you … provided, of course, that John lets me._

"D'Anna, see if you can raise Leoben. I'm going to try and take us into the atmosphere."

"A most interesting choice of words, Natalie … but then our child does seem to have a mind of his own." D'Anna was grinning from ear to ear, but she was also beaming with pride.

"Missiles away," the Eight announced. A few seconds passed. "Their FTL's are history!"

"Six, try and keep us in their shadow. Let's confuse the other two ships for as long as possible!"

"Natalie, they're coming down the gravity well _fast_! Their tylium consumption rate must be enormous!" The blond Six didn't know whether she should be terribly impressed or unduly alarmed; no one in this battle was playing by the established rules.

"I've got Leoben," D'Anna cut in. "He's climbing through the upper atmosphere, more or less directly above Delphi."

"Tell him to shift his transponder to Echo 23, and let him know that he's about to pick up a Raider escort. Six, have you found him?"

"Two minutes out, Natalie. But we're going to have Raiders all over us in one!"

. . .

Caprica Six was sitting on a park bench in the Riverwalk district of Caprica City. It was a bright and sunny day, the radioactivity notwithstanding, but she was not enjoying the warm kiss of the sun on her skin. The unwelcome companionship of the Three, who seemed constantly to be hovering about her, testing her, was ruining the moment.

She noticed one of the Fives hastening towards them, a look of deep concern stapled onto his normally unreadable features.

"Have you heard?"

"Heard what, brother?" D'Anna's voice was low and steady; she could not prevent the practiced air of false sympathy that she always used on Caprica from bleeding over to the Five.

"One of our ships has gone over to the humans! Even as we speak, there's a battle raging over our heads!"

The Three was properly aghast, but Caprica Six had to struggle hard to contain her glee. Since her download, she had been patiently waiting for John to signal her that it was time to proceed. _Caprica Six, 'Hero of the Cylon'. _She _hated_ the name, hated the way they fawned over her … the congratulations, the endless roar of their applause. But she had a higher purpose, so she had learned how to don a mask of her own: no matter what they said, she stood there and she took it. Inside, however, she was still Natasi, and she had repented of her sins. She acknowledged her place in the grand design that their child had laid out for them all. She had work to do, good work that would allow her to atone at least in part for all of the harm that she had done. It was time. Phase two of Diaspora could now begin.

. . .

"Six, take us down _hard_, and reposition the Raiders above us! Three, make sure that they have the current emergency jump coordinates; we're not going to have time to pick them up on the way out. Eight, let's give their Raiders something to do besides chasing us! Target the nearest baseship, conventional ordnance only, and fire at will."

Natalie was in her element, and she finally had confidence that John was working with her, falling into her rhythm. _We can do this_, she kept telling herself; _I don't care how many baseships they throw at us, we can do this._ She was now completely immersed in the data stream, issuing orders automatically as she watched the rival baseships close the distance between them, kept an eye on Leoben's Heavy Raider, and tracked the Raider flights as they chased one another across a broad swath of space. Six was recklessly driving them down Caprica's gravity well, essentially daring the inertial compensators to fail when they reversed thrust to match velocities with the Heavy Raider. But she was shaving precious seconds off the time that they would be exposed to enemy attack; Natalie wholeheartedly approved of her sister's tactic- she would worry later about the insane rate at which they were chewing up their tylium supply.

"Baseships are launching," the Two said in a calm voice that Natalie couldn't help but admire. "I'm tracking two hundred inbounds, twenty of them nukes … intermittent velocities. Natalie, they've switched tactics. The nukes are in the second wave. The conventional warheads out front are supposed to distract our Raiders and make it easier for the nukes to punch through."

Natalie smiled maliciously. _I wonder what idiot came up with this plan. _ "Two, have the Raiders target the missiles immediately in front of the nukes and ignore everything else. I want a solid wall of shrapnel out there!"

"Natalie," the Six reported, "I'm initiating the braking sequence now, and I'm going to try and keep us between Leoben and the Raiders. Forty seconds, Natalie … hold them at bay for forty seconds."

Natalie looked meaningfully at the Two, who simply shook his head. "The trailing ventral is going to take a beating, but our Raiders are screening the central axis. Sorry, Natalie, but we don't have the firepower to ward off everything."

She nodded in acknowledgment. "Everybody stand by for jump." Natalie looked across the chamber to her blond sister. "Let me know the second we have the Heavy Raider on the deck."

A series of powerful explosions rocked the baseship as four missiles struck the trailing ventral in rapid succession. The warheads were conventional, but their spacing was tight, and that exponentially increased the damage that they inflicted. The outer third of the arm sheared off and fell away.

"Leoben's on the deck," the Six yelled.

Natalie Faust poured her mind into the data stream, and gave the order.

"JUMP!" the hybrid screamed.

. . .

William Adama returned to the CIC and reclaimed his customary perch at the DRADIS console. He had left just long enough to track down Sergeant Mathias. He didn't know how much support Laura Roslin enjoyed, but he didn't want to find out the hard way. His orders to Mathias were explicit: no one was to be permitted to see either Lee or the president without his personal authorization—and no one meant, first and foremost, Billy Keikeya. Now his gaze swept the CIC, and registered the looks of disappointment and doubt that marked almost every face. The taste of betrayal was like ashes in his mouth. Roslin he could live with; he had never liked or trusted the power-mad schoolteacher. But Lee and Kara … they were family, a different order of the universe. As Bill looked around the CIC, he suddenly realized that the list of people in whom he had absolute faith had grown very small. The course of events since the destruction of the Colonies had taken one unexpected turn after another, and it had reduced the circle of people whom he could count on to be there for him in the good times and the bad to a pair of Cylons and a human who stumbled into the CIC, as often as not, with booze on his breath. _How did the universe ever get this frakked up? My best friend is an unrepentant alcoholic trapped inside one of the most destructive marriages I've ever seen. I've taken a Cylon to be my daughter. And I've fallen in love with a Cylon so completely that the thought of going forward without her at my side is unbearable. How did it ever come to this?_

"Mr. Gaeta, does the fleet have our updated jump coordinates?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. Dee, order the fleet to jump."

Adama looked across the console at Saul Tigh. "We're going to get our people off the surface of Kobol."

. . .

"_How did the universe ever get this frakked up?"_ The walk from the control room to the hangar bay where Leoben had landed his shuttle was a long one, and it gave Natalie Faust plenty of time to think. There were bodies in the corridors, and the looks on the faces of the survivors said it all. They were dazed, and more than anything else they were hurt. Cylons killing Cylons. The taste of betrayal was like ashes in her mouth. _How did it ever come to this?_

Natalie paused in front of a data port. She had lost friends and family today, and she thought it unlikely that she would ever get them back. Oh, they would all download, but they would be boxed; unless she could figure out a way to rescue them, their deaths would prove effectively permanent. She felt especially bad about the few centurions whom the Ones and Fives had managed to destroy. They would download straight into shells equipped with telencephalic inhibitors. They would go back to being slaves. And for some reason that made Natalie Faust feel very, very angry.

Natalie made her decision. Humans attributed great meaning to ceremonial, used it as a contrivance to help them cope with unendurable loss. Perhaps Cylons could take shelter behind these same walls, and John … she knew that she had to do something to help the child, who was hurting in ways that she could barely begin to comprehend.

She had felt his presence in the data stream. Each time that she had made the connection, she had felt his presence- a living mind, something utterly different from the hybrid that she also sensed standing at his side. Great gentleness combined there with steely resolve. And there was love that flinched in the face of death. Great pain had washed through everyone in the stream in that moment when the baseship died … his pain; his love for a hybrid now forever lost made her feel small and unworthy, like an infant taking its first steps, caught up in a world beyond the reach of its understanding.

Natalie reflected on the fact that Leoben had been among humans for a long time, and he had advanced so far beyond her that her only refuge was to question his sanity. Thalia had been on _Galactica_ for a few days at most, and yet the experience had profoundly changed her. _Are we nothing more than blank slates? Do we acquire shape and form only by walking among humans?_

She issued orders through the stream. Natalie wanted the bodies of all those who had fallen in battle to be gathered up and carried to the very hangar bay to which she was now hastening. She would summon her people, even the few humans, and she would perform services for their dead.

Horrible loss awaited her in the landing bay, a single moment that somehow crystallized the events of this long and terrible day. Thalia. Natalie registered Leoben's presence, and that of the Eight in her colonial flight suit; she made note of the two humans, but it was the body that the tall male officer was holding in his arms that called out to her. Thalia. For the first time in her life, Natalie felt the sting of warm tears on her cheek.

"Was it worth it, brother?" Natalie could hear the bitterness in her voice. "We destroyed one baseship today and crippled a second. We've lost over one hundred Raiders … and centurions who will once again have to submit to slavery. Every One and Five on this ship is dead, and most of the Fours. I have lost sisters, and you have lost brothers … _was it worth it, Leoben?_"

Leoben beckoned Kara to come forward. He gestured at the gilded arrow in her grasp. "This is the arrow of Apollo, which will open the tomb of Athena on Kobol. Kobol will give us Earth, and the end of our journey. And she will guide us there."

Leoben looked affectionately at Kara Thrace. His faith in her was unshakable. "Kara, this is Natalie. She is to this baseship what Adama is to _Galactica_. Natalie, this is Kara Thrace … the pilot whom we all know as Starbuck. The Second Born daughter of Six … _your daughter, Natalie_! You tell me if it was worth it!"

. . .

It seemed an eternity before they would allow her to escape. Boomer fled to her quarters, her excuse the desire to shed her flight suit and take a shower, the reality an ever more urgent need to get away, to be alone. She stood in front of her locker, fondled the locket with its tiny picture of a family that had never been. She was stranded in purgatory, neither Cylon nor human but something in between. And now it would always be like this. Adama had given her a test and she had passed, so now she would become the serpent in the garden. The father she loved would dispatch her on mission after mission, expecting her to oversee the slaughter of her own self, not caring whether the Sharons who piloted the Heavy Raiders and populated the baseships resurrected or not. And they would love her nonetheless, grant her absolution. How many times might she kill a single copy of herself? How much death would she mete out before the last corner of her soul shriveled up and fell away? There was only one road leading out of the living hell to which she had been condemned, and she resolved to take it. She reached into her locker and brought out her service pistol. She released the safety, and in one fluid and unhesitating motion shoved the weapon into her mouth and pulled the trigger.


	23. Chapter 23: 1st Day, Rest of Our Lives

CHAPTER 23

THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF OUR LIVES

"Are they the lucky ones? That's what some of you are thinking, isn't it?"

Twenty-four Cylon bodies were laid out in neat rows of six—all the Twos, Threes, Sixes, and Eights who had perished at the hands of their treacherous brothers. The centurions had collected the bullet-riddled corpses of the Ones, Fours, and Fives and unceremoniously dumped them into space. Four centurions had also fallen during the battle, and their remains were laid out at the four corners of this grim formation.

"We've been expelled from the collective. We can no longer take refuge in resurrection technology, so we must heel any wounds inflicted upon us, no matter how long and painful the recovery. We have limited supplies, limited fuel, and no allies. Maybe it would have been better for us to have died quickly in battle and suffered the others to box us. Surely … some of you must be thinking … surely that would be preferable to having our brothers and sisters hunt us down … preferable to dying out here slowly in the emptiness of dark space."

Natalie Faust was pacing in front of the survivors, trying to find words that would give them hope in the face of unimaginable betrayal. They needed a goal, she thought, something to fight for that was more meaningful than survival for survival's sake.

"Where shall we go? What shall we do? _'Life here began out there.'_ Those are the first words of the sacred scrolls that are the common heritage of Cylon and human. And they make it perfectly clear that we are not alone in the universe. Leoben, there's a thirteenth colony of humankind, is there not?"

"Yes," the Two replied. "The scrolls of Pythia tell us that a thirteenth tribe left Kobol during the exodus. The people traveled a great distance and made their home on a planet called Earth. It circles a distant and unknown star."

Leoben looked around the chamber, taking in what was surely the strangest gathering in the history of his kind. There were humans standing alongside the centurions and the human form Cylons, and that was odd enough, but the presence of Kara Thrace was nothing less than providential.

"Unknown only for now!" Natalie held up the arrow of Apollo. "Our son brought us to Caprica in search of the arrow, only for us to find that our daughter had got there first. Kara will use the artifact to open the tomb of Athena on Kobol, and within she will discover the way to Earth. Earth will be our refuge, but it won't be an easy journey. No, it will be long and arduous. But I promise you one thing. On the memory of those taken from us this day, we shall find it! We shall not fail because we have already been tested, and we have not been found wanting! Prophecy tells us that the Deliverer will lift the Anointed towards the light, and that the Guide will lead the Chosen to their appointed end. The First Born proved our salvation today, and the Second Born will be our salvation tomorrow. _Earth will become our new home!_"

. . .

Her consciousness raced through a long, winding tube, billions of data points illuminating the way with their reddish glow. She was swept forward, struggling helplessly against the current, knowing that she would awaken in a new and unwanted body, eyes flinching from the light.

She screamed.

A tiny pool of brightness enveloped her, in an otherwise vast and shadowed hollow. Faces circled the tank … solicitous, understanding, worried … faces filled with unrestrained love.

She screamed.

. . .

When Natalie finished, she beckoned Kara to step forward. The Cylon regarded the Second Born with something just short of awe. She was still trying to figure out whether this had been the best day of her life or the worst. Perhaps, she decided, it's both. Perhaps it could not be otherwise.

Natalie handed the arrow to Starbuck, and quietly encouraged her to address the assembled humans and Cylons. When Kara turned to face them, she discovered that the confidence that surrounded her in the cockpit had suddenly vanished. She had no idea what Natalie expected of her.

"I … uh … I don't have much experience doing this. I've … uh … always let my actions speak for me. And I don't really know what to say, except that … um … Laura Roslin sent me to chase down the arrow. She also believes that this is the key to Earth … that Earth will be humanity's new home. So I guess that we're all on the same path, and maybe the only question left for us to answer is whether we are going to go on killing each other right up to the last moment. I hope not. It's suddenly become very important to me to find … to find a way to stop. I don't want to have to pick a side in a fight between my parents."

Kara looked all around the vast chamber. There were dozens of Sixes present, perhaps hundreds … there was no way that she could count them all. And they all thought of her as their daughter! _That's going to take some getting used to, being the offspring of an entire Cylon model! But maybe it's better this way, better if I just think of all of them as 'mom'. Then I won't have to figure out which ones are my aunts, or my sisters, or my nieces … I'll get a lot less headaches this way. And gods, what's Lee going to think about all this? The Old Man? Will they treat me like some kind of pariah?_

"There's a better way. I'm the daughter of a Six, as John is the son of a Three. Now Sharon says that she's carrying Helo's child. If that's true, then you can all have children. Wouldn't it be better to create life than to destroy it?"

A vision of the future opened up before her, one in which the cycles of violence between man and machine finally came to an end, and with that the hesitation disappeared from Kara Thrace's voice.

"Humans created Cylons, and you evolved really fast! But you hit an evolutionary dead end; Leoben tells me that no child has ever been born to Cylon parents, and I guess there's no reason to think that one ever will be. But now there's an alternative … now you don't have to be a spectator watching the miracle of life unfold all around you. Now you can become a part of the cycle of life by joining with humans … having children. It won't be easy … we've hated each other too long for it to be easy. But it can be done. I see it in the fleet every day … a handful of Cylons leading good lives with the people they love. All of us are going to have to abandon the moral high ground, find a way to forgive the past so that we can create the future we want. Cylons and humans must make common cause. Go to Earth together. We don't know what we'll find there, _but we do know what we have here! Life! And the possibility of creating more life! We must not_ … we must not let this chance pass us by."

"_So say we all!"_ Leoben Conoy had to admit that it didn't sound right, but they needed to say _something_ and "by your command" just didn't seem to fit the needs of the moment.

Leoben glared at his fellow Cylons.

"_So say we all!"_ A few Cylons responded, but tentatively, and their voices soon fell away.

Larissa Karanis stepped forward to stand beside Kara and Leoben, Helo and Sharon nipping at her heels.

"_So say we all! So say we all!" _Natalie took up the cry, willing her people to grasp the importance of the moment. Some sensed it more quickly than others, but soon the sound became a crescendo that rolled over the hangar deck in waves.

"So say we all," Natalie quietly said in conclusion, the conviction in her tone there for all to hear. She looked down at Thalia's body, a fifth row unto itself, the exclamation point on all that they had lost.

"So say we all."

. . .

She committed suicide, a mortal sin in both of the religious systems that laid claim to her soul.

Against her will came the journey to another tank … the white light piercing an ocean of inky darkness. More faces etched with concern … so forgiving … so loving. She hated them all.

. . .

In _Galactica's_ morgue, a devastated William Adama peeled back the sheet that covered her remains, looked down into a face so ruined that he wasn't quite sure that this was his beloved daughter. He was weeping uncontrollably—hot, stinging tears. He could give voice to but one word, and it echoed throughout this desolate and empty place again and again: "_why?_"

. . .

She became more adept. She committed suicide a second time …

. . .

"_The frakking Sixes, can't they do anything right?'_ John Cavil was holding a CPU in his hand, and he was so disgusted that he hurled it violently across the floor. He didn't know whose consciousness was in the download, and he didn't care. "Two baseships," he screamed, _"I gave the Sixes two frakking baseships plus the element of surprise! And what do they do? They lose one of them, and let the other get shredded! How frakked up can you get?"_

"Patience, brother," his twin soothed, "patience. All the downloads have been boxed, even our own brothers. No one is the wiser."

"No one's the wiser? Are you nuts? _We have an entire frakking baseship out there, and everybody on it knows what's going on!_"

"No, brother, we have an entire baseship full of traitors out there. They have only one place to go and one place to hide. Believe me, it's just a matter of time before they seek to make alliance with the humans—and once they do, our brothers and sisters will know them for the traitors that they are. No one will listen to them."

"And the Abominations? What do we do about the Abominations?"

"We wait for them on Kobol. You've missed a most interesting download, brother … one of the Eights. We wait for them on Kobol. And then we deal with them once and for all."

. . .

Shelly Godfrey stood just beyond the door, her head leaning against the wall, hot tears staining her cheeks as well. The sound that came to her through that closed door chilled her to the very core of her being. No Cylon could possibly utter such a sound, not yet. This was primal, the howl of anguish of a deeply wounded animal. And this is what it truly means to be human, she realized, to love so completely despite knowing that this might be the cost. She could feel pieces of her heart beginning to break away—but what remained would be much stronger. The war had brought them to this. Behind all of Cavil's noble words about avenging the injustices visited upon their forebears, this was what lay in wait. William Adama had admitted a Cylon into his heart, a daughter whom he had loved without equivocation. He fought for her, and he thought that he had saved her. But the war had ravaged her soul.

. . .

A third time …

. . .

Shelly went to him. She passed through the hatch, sank to the floor at his side, and pulled him into her arms. She suffered with him, but she suffered in silence. They would mourn Sharon together, each in their own way. They would comfort one another. And she would never leave his side … never again.

. . .

A fourth …

. . .

"No, we do not jump straight to Kobol. The Ones will set a trap for us there, and we don't have the fuel for another drawn out battle. We're going back to the asteroid. We'll take all of the raw and processed tylium in store, we'll free the centurions and add them to our force, and we'll try and win over any Twos, Threes, Sixes, or Eights in the facility. Then we'll try and find the humans … see if we can come to some kind of an arrangement."

Natalie was back in the Control Room. She wanted desperately to accompany Kara and Leoben to the hybrid's chamber, but for now duty could be her first and only consideration. Morale was hanging in the balance, what they had lost perhaps outweighing what they had gained on this incredible day. She had to keep her people busy, keep them moving forward, not let them dwell on the immediate past.

"We're rebels," she explained to everyone in the Control Room, "and from now on we have to think like rebels. We take supplies where we can find them, and we avoid battles where the odds are obviously stacked against us. We no longer have the luxury of making mistakes, so we'll have to become smarter, more cunning. And we will. Make no mistake … we will!"

. . .

"I love you, Bill … _I love you_." She had finally found the courage to say it openly, the words rising from her heart, once spoken never to be recalled. "And I promise you that one day you will hold another daughter in your arms, and you will love her like you love Sharon. We'll love our daughter, we'll always be there for her … and yet we will always wonder if we're doing enough. This is the way of it."

Shelly had banished all of her earlier doubts. She could have children … she was certain of it now. She could feel the tides of life flowing through her body—tides that had not been there when she first departed the collective. It was as if a still and empty pool had surrendered to a raging storm, the water surging first one way and then the other.

. . .

A fifth …

. . .

Inside William Adama, the last barrier came crashing down. He could feel Shelly's hand nestled against his cheek, and he reached up to hold it tight, press it hard against his skin. "I love you, Shelly." He watched the smile as it lit up her eyes. _"It's about time,"_ she replied, her joy momentarily dampening their pain.

. . .

Boomer committed suicide six times before she finally accepted her fate. She had been damned for her sins, and she had descended through all the gates of Hell to the bottommost pit. She had come to the one place where no demon would ever bother to torment her, so intent was Sharon Valerii upon torturing herself. She prayed that she would never escape because, at the end of the journey, she had at long last found her rightful home.

. . .

Leoben found a photograph for her, a pen, and some adhesive. She didn't know if this was a picture of Thalia or not, but it looked just like her, and so Kara Thrace was content. _Missed but never forgotten_, she wrote at the bottom in a tiny but neat script. She walked down the featureless corridor, seeking a place that felt right to her. Every ship, she thought, should have a hall of remembrance, a memorial that would remind the living of their debt to the past. She found her place, and when it was done she bowed her head in solitary prayer.

Hours later, when next she traversed the corridor, she found other photographs mounted on the wall, circling Thalia's own.

. . .

It was an improbable place, she reflected, but then it was an improbable universe. Shelly Godfrey was devout, and the first article of her faith was that God had filled the universe with love. God had given her the power to love, had literally poured it into his Cylon chalice. God had steered her steps to this man, to this place, to this moment. She understood, though, that her journey had been short compared with his. To reach this place, William Adama had been compelled to make an immense leap of faith. His was the burden of overcoming hatred and fear, the loss of billions, and the absence of belief.

The floor was cold, hard, and unwelcoming—but it was right. She was gentle with him, but her gentleness possessed an insistency of its own. This was their first time, she was cylon, and so she would carry the memory of it intact for the rest of her life. She wanted to reach far beyond passion, to that place where love fused not only bodies but minds and hearts and souls. And William Adama, the selfishness of his youth long since fallen away, sensing the textures of her need and ranking it in importance far beyond his own, was content to follow her lead. In the presence of death and loss they affirmed the power of love … knowing that it always held out the possibility of new life. As they made love, no words desecrating the silence in this awful place, Shelly Godfrey looked deep into William Adama's eyes, looked through them to the heart and the spirit that resided within. And there she found the path that would lead them forward. It wound through a forested valley, sometimes in view and sometimes not, but in the distance she could see that it crested a hill. She could not see beyond the crest, but she could see the smoke curling up from a chimney fire somewhere in the distance. In that glade and in that place, William Adama, Shelly Godfrey, and the child whom she would one day bear would find their hearth and home.

SEASON ONE CONCLUDES


	24. Chapter 24: The Last Word

**WARNING! THIS CHRONOLOGY IS A READY REFERENCE TO ASSIST READERS WHO HAVE ALREADY FINISHED WITH SEASON ONE. IT CONTAINS MANY SPOILERS.**

**CHRONOLOGY (SEASON 1)**

**BCH (BEFORE CYLON HOLOCAUST)**

**YEARS**

40: Humans and Cylons sign the Cimtar Accords

38: CSS analysts conclude that the Cylons are engaged in biosynthetic experiments

34: A Three gives forced birth to John Bierns on the Colony

25: A Six gives forced birth to Kara Thrace on the Colony

21: John Bierns flees Virgon

20: Bierns surfaces on Caprica

13: Harlan Berriman recruits Bierns into the CSS

6: _Valkyrie_, under the command of William Adama, violates the Armistice Line

**ACH (AFTER CYLON HOLOCAUST) YEAR ONE**

**DAYS**

11: Bierns catches up with the fleet

17: Shelly Godfrey kills John Cavil and defects; the Six with no name and Leoben Conoy are arrested; Lydia Sextus defects

23: Bierns confronts Simon O'Neill

24: Sharon becomes pregnant on Caprica

26: The press conference

27: Bierns and Adama persuade the Six with no name to defect

58: _Galactica_ assaults the asteroid; Bierns frees the surviving centurions

62: Aaron Doral sends one of the surviving centurions to his former (Natalie's) baseship

63: Raptor 612 encounters Natalie's baseship

66: Bierns is severely injured during a prisoner exchange on the baseship; Starbuck jumps to Caprica; Leoben deduces that John and Kara are the First and Second Born; Thalia dies in the Delphi museum; the battle of Caprica

67: Natalie, Creusa, and the rebel baseship capture the asteroid

68: Boomer and Racetrack destroy the baseship over Kobol; Laura Roslin and Lee Adama are arrested; Boomer commits suicide

76: Bill and Shelly mourn Boomer in the _Galactica_ morgue


End file.
